What on earth is Kawasaki disease? That was one mum’s reaction when her baby came down with this serious but little-known illness. She shares her story with EVELINE GAN.
When one of her twins came down with a sudden high fever, Nathalie Yan thought it was just a regular virus. But paracetamol and antibiotics didn’t help.
“The temperature continued to climb above 39 deg C,” Nathalie recalls. “Instinctively, I felt that something wasn’t right and asked for my baby to be hospitalised.”
Her decision not to wait out the fever saved four-month-old Elisabeth’s life.
By the third day, the whites of her eyes and lips turned frighteningly scarlet. She also developed rashes on her genitals and had diarrhoea.
Then, the doctors broke the bad news: It was Kawasaki disease.
“My first reaction was: What’s that? I had never heard of it,” says the first-time mum, 36, a human resources manager.
Nathalie found out enough from the Internet for panic to kick in. The serious childhood illness, which affects mainly younger kids under the age of five, causes small and medium-sized blood vessels in the body to become inflamed.
According to Elisabeth’s doctor, the condition makes one feels like the body is “on fire”.
“That was probably how my baby felt when she was sick. She stopped eating, cried a lot and was extremely irritable,” she shares.
As Nathalie struggled to relieve her little one’s discomfort, her mind reeled from the possibility that the disease might also cause long-term health issues like heart problems – or worse, death – when not treated in time.
She had learnt that young babies, particularly those under six months old, have a higher chance of developing heart complications from Kawasaki disease.
Treated in time
This story is from the September 2016 edition of Young Parents Singapore.
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This story is from the September 2016 edition of Young Parents Singapore.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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