Fifth Disease Scare

Had a bit of a scare with something called Fifth Disease, so named as it was the fifth discovered classical childhood skin rash. It's sometimes called Slapped Cheek Disease as people with this rash tend to have bright red cheeks as one of the symptoms. My co-worker called me on Friday to say that she had just found out that her daughter had been diagnosed with this Fifth Disease and that, while she wasn't currently contagious, at one point in time she had been. Since the child was contagious she could have given the rash to her mom (my co-worker) who in turn could have exposed the rash to me.

Of course contacting this rash as an adult (or even as a child) is not usually a big deal. The rash goes away in a few weeks and other than some mild flu-like symptoms most people recover without a problem. Being pregnant, however, is another story. Mom's who contact Fifth Disease can pass this along to their unborn child where the child can get a condition called Hydrops fetalis which can lead to severe anemia, severe low birth weight, or miscarriage (early or late-term).

Let's just say that while I really didn't think I'd caught this as I hadn't had ANY symptoms and my last close contact with my co-worker had been a week or two prior I wasn't going to temp fate. I left a message on my Doctor's on-call phone and got a call back within ten minutes where I was instructed to head down to the local lab to get some blood drawn. I asked the nurse and she said it would be probably two-four days before we got the results of the blood draw back, so I shouldn't expect to know anything until sometime next Wednesday. I guess I figured that since this was the earliest I would know, I would try not to worry and just believe that all was well.

Imagine my surprise when this morning (less than 24 hours after the blood draw) my Doctor called me back to give me the test results. It appears that I was exposed to Fifth Disease sometime in my past and have great antibodies for it, so 1) I don't currently have this and 2) I'm well guarded against getting it in the future. Baby is still safe inside me. Yeah! I must give props to my Doctor (Dr. Lorenzo from Arbor Healthcare for Women) as I never expected to hear from this clinic on a Saturday and by the Doctor himself. I am SOOOOOOO glad I switched from my previous OB/GYM clinic (I'll just keep that name to myself, but if you really want to know -just ask) to Arbor Healthcare. I feel like a real person with a real human inside of me rather than a patient number on a chart. This is just another example of how awesome this new place is!