Kawasaki's Disease

I will be talking about a time in my life that was not easy that i had to go through. When I was around age 5 my mom noticed a lot of twitching and blinking of my eyes she was worried and had no idea what it was, so she took me to the doctor. They said I had focal seizures, as a little kid you don’t really understand or know how to feel. But I could just remember my mom constantly worried about me. The reason behind me having these seizures, was when I was born there was a part on my lower brain that didn’t form so it left scar tissue and was causing them. But at the time we were still living in Texas the doctors tried multiple surgeries, but none of them helped so we moved to Tennessee for better doctoring. That’s when I started going to Vanderbilt and ever since then it’s been a journey.

It was one of those days where everything seemed to go wrong. I was sweaty, exhausted, stressed, and had this weird feeling that seemed to bubble up inside of me, angry and unforgiving. My skin felt a hundred degrees, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to scream or cry.

The constant worrying and overthinking consumed my life. My fear began to run my life and eat me alive. I was in a horrible mood at all times and did not want to be talked or touched. The sadness surrounding me seemed to be pushing people away, leaving me feeling even more alone than I actually was. Sometimes, I am still like this, hostile and cross, but as I have gotten older, these episodes become less frequent and less severe.

Back in 2009, when I first came to the United States, I had a terrifying experience. I just finished taking a shower when I suddenly felt out of breath and my heart was pounding fast. With my nursing background, I had to keep calm, drank water and sat down judging that it would soon be over. However, moments later, the symptoms still persisted. I did not exhibit any chest pain, but I knew something was amiss. Without delay, I phoned my aunt who was a critical care nurse and was told to go to ED right away. We dashed to the ED, with me struggling to walk because I had an extreme feeling of doom. Everything around me was a blur. I was so scared. My husband was in Baltimore. I was with my relatives visiting in North Carolina and my three kids were still in the Philippines. I felt like my life flashed before me. It was the most horrifying experience I have ever run into.

Five years ago, my mother had a brain aneurysm that she shouldn’t have survived. It was traumatic and damaging and to this day she still isn’t right. The point i’m trying to make is that no matter how much you want time to stay the same, it doesn’t. Many mistakes have been made since then, and a lot has been learned. I wouldn’t want to repeat the past if my life depended on it. After my mother had two major heart defects by the time the brain aneurysm occurred I wasn’t ready to give up my mom. We found out just a short time later that it could’ve been prevented if she would’ve made better choices in her life. My life five years ago was undeniably the worst part of my eighteen almost nineteen years on this earth. I stayed in a hospital waiting room for three months just looking for a sign she would wake back up. No one’s ever said why a waiting room is actually called a waiting room. It’s called this because you are waiting on the rest of your life to unfold, waiting to find out if you’ll ever speak to someone again, just waiting on an answer. It is horrifying to walk down a hallway squeezing your brother’s hand so hard he has to tell you to loosen up all to sit in a waiting room and wait on your fait. So my life was not at all glamorous but it got me where I am today, so really I can’t complain. What made me happy after that was watching my mother wake up and finally life started to get back

The calendar read July 28, 2014 as I laid on a cold, hard hospital bed awaiting the results of my MRI scan. My waiting came to a sudden end when the Oncologist entered the room with a sorrowful look revealing I had stage 4A Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Lost for words, as I sat in disbelief of the news, tears began to run down my face. Oddly, my tears were not of sadness. At the time, crying just felt like the natural thing to do. My body physically reacted before my mind could even begin to process the information.

Five years ago, my mother was rushed to the hospital for an aneurysm. For the next two weeks, my family and I sat huddled around her bed in the intensive-care unit, oscillating between panic, fear, uncertainty, and exhaustion.

As a child, I felt like a mutant with a horrible disease. I had a medical condition that no doctor could properly diagnose. I went to four different doctors and two specialists, yet not one could give me a straight forward answer as to why I feeling so horrible. Not only was I concerned, but so was my mother. At the age of five, I started what felt like countless tests to try to determine what was causing me to be in so much pain and be so nauseated that I would sleep on the bathroom.

Now, I’m not going to discuss what happened to me, but more of what didn’t get told to me. When I went to the hospital I was confused, no one told me anything expect I would need surgery, and that I was going to be okay. Until this day I still don’t know everything that happened, I recently found out I had received

When I turned 11-years-old my whole childhood began to change my life went from being perfect to everything but perfect. One day I came home to hear the news my father, my best friend; my hero was diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer. Not knowing the struggle my family was about to take on I just began to cry. I had a million things running through my head what’s going to happen? Will everything be okay? Why him? What is going to happen? With all these things rushing through my head all I could do was cry not knowing this was least worse to come.

Once Kawasaki Disease has been diagnosed, beginning treatment is critical to be started fast. The child will be admitted to the hospital to be under constant observation and receive intravenous therapy. Intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) and aspirin are the most important treatments to begin. Intravenous immunoglobulin, specifically Gammagard for Kawasaki disease, is classified as a biologic response modifier (med book) it is used as an unlabeled use that research has shown to reduce fever and the risk of heart problems by providing additional antibodies to fight disease-carrying organisms (Kawasaki disease - Treatment). IVIG is most effective in the first 10 days of the disease. It has been reported that approximately 20% of children do not respond to the initial dose IVIG, and require either another dose or other experimental medication to try and obtain the same effects (Kawasaki Disease Clinic). Aspirin is given during the acute

Do you know Kawasaki Disease can cause people to have a heart attack? Kawasaki disease is a sever illness young that can cause young children to have a heart attack. I hope that this does not happened to no one.

Kawasaki disease is an acute vasculitis that occus in children under five years of age. It is a rare childhood illness but dangerous. The causes of this disease is still unknown. It often occurs in late winter snd early spring. The signs and symptoms of kawasaki is divided in three stage. Firstly, in early stage, patients have a fever that last more than five days, red tongue and swollen lips. Red eyes, body rash and swollen lymph nodes in neck are also appear during this time. After that, the skin of hands and feet are peel, joint paint. Some patient may also has a diarrhea or abdominal pain. The late stage, that signs and symptoms are appear around or more 8 weeks. There has some complication of kawasaki on heart, for example: vasculitis,

Kawasaki Disease is a vasculitis (an inflammation of blood vessels) of the medium-sized arteries. It specifically affects the coronary arteries in approximately 20% of patients. Kawasaki Disease affects children between the ages of 1 and 8 years old. In the United States, there are approximately 3 to 5 thousand cases annually. Although rare it can affect adults and infants under the age of 4 months. (Merck Manual) Kawasaki Disease is the leading cause of acquired heart disease in the developed world. (GP, Mar 2010)

Based on the history of Kawasaki syndrome , it is stated that the first case of an unusual illness with rash and fever had been detected in a 4 year old child by one of the doctor in Japan named Tomisaku Kawasaki [4]. Specifically,this first case had been found at the Red Cross Hospital in Tokyo, Japan .Kawasaki syndrome is an illness that frequently occurs among young children. It usually affects children ages 1 to 2 years and is less common in children which age more than 8 years. This syndrome is not a contagious disease but has the ability to harm the coronal artery of the children which functions to carry blood to heart muscles . Kawasaki syndrome can be categorised as one of the serious illness in the medical field since it has the