The Unknown Rash and the Crabby Girl

This picture does not really capture the rash.

    There are times that I feel like Sherlock Homes (without the aid of Watson), o.k. most times I feel like Sherlock Homes.  At our house it seems like there is always some mystery to solve (maybe I should paint up the van to look like the Mystery Machine).  I do not like the unknown.  The unknown has been known to keep up all night.  I have to figure it out, even if it kills me, and everyone else around me.  I am a person that needs to know the answers.

    Today's mystery is Elly's rash.  She had a cold with a sore throat and cough last week, all the kids did.  Friday she started to complain about her ear hurting.  We should probably have a share in Amoxicillin, because my girls survive the winter on the stuff because of ear infections.  She's also been complaining when we pick her up under her arms.  I figured that she has glands up.  She was running a low fever for the past few days.  It was on Saturday that we noticed the weird raised red shadows under her eyes.  Saturday afternoon Christopher took her into the walk in clinic while I had Rowan and Riley at tumbling.  The doctor at the clinic did not notice her eyes, and said her ear was just pink, not antibiotic worthy. By Saturday night she looked like a football player who had gone for red grease paint instead of black.  Sunday morning the raised red rash under her eyes had become bigger. By Sunday afternoon the rash nearly covered her face, and was now on her underarms and trunk of her body.  Did I mention that through all of it she was extremely crabby?

    Now it was mystery time.  It did not look like Fifths Disease (also known as slap face), at least it didn't look like when the big kids all had it.  My Mom saw it and keeps saying that she would swear that it was measles.  Elly has been vaccinated against measles, but stranger things have happened.  I went to the computer and put "rash" into the search engine, nothing helpful came up.  If only Doctor House was here!  I was at a loss.  I kept repeating to myself what I did know... she had been sick, she had had a fever, and then the rash.  Most viruses that involve rashes (chicken pox, Roseola, Fifth Disease) that I know of seem to follow the same M.O., fever, then rash.

    This morning Elly woke up with even more rash.  Her little eyes were now swollen, and the eyelids purple.  She was miserable, and crying because she itched so much.  Since the rash started I have been giving her Benadryl, but it has made no difference.  Last night I gave her an oatmeal bath, it really did not help.  I called the school to let them know that she would not be in today, and asked the secretary if she knew of any rash bugs going around.  She sounded surprised and said that she did not.  Now I had to go for the big guns... I called my family doctor.

    Unfortunately my family doctor, although nice, did not have any answers for me.  He said that it looked like an allergic reaction.  I told him that she had not had any new foods, or been exposed to anything new, and that Benadryl had not helped.  Casually he told me that Benadryl does not really work for kids (then why do they sell it).  Maybe she's allergic to the virus.  Doesn't he know that
I NEED TO KNOW WHAT THIS IS CALLED!!!!  I am away home knowing pretty much what I knew when I left the house.  I know what it's not.  Its' not measles and it's not Fifths Disease. Oh the joys of motherhood.