Quick Update

First of all, thank you so much for all your support and words of encouragement after I wrote the last two posts. It's very comforting just to check my email and see your comments trickling in - that's one of the reasons I love blogging so much, it provides a very effective support system!

Thanks to Cloudscome and Delia for sharing their experiences in their respective comments.

So far the developments are not great, but significant. K hasn't arrived home yet (my father-in-law called me a couple of hours ago from the U.S. to let me know that he was on his way home), so he hasn't contacted the pediatrician yet. We called a doctor we know here, an infectologist, and Lyme disease is known in Brazil, although few cases have ocurred (it seems to be mosly a problem in animals -- cattle). This doctor assured us that if needed we can go to São Paulo and get the blood test done (testing for antibodies) and because the rash is so small he thinks it's unecessary to begin the treatment with antibiotics just yet. He argued that maybe the skin is just irritated because my son has no fever or other symptoms. I wish he could see the rash and examine Kelvin (he does too) and I wonder whether we shouldn't just go to São Paulo or another large city nearby (Campinas) to do it. One of the problems is that we depend on the kindness of doctors we know (thankfully we do know many) to help us since we don't have health insurance here -- not that this is a big problem.

If our pediatrician back in the U.S. decides to prescribe antibiotics right away, we can easily buy them here since drugs here are much cheaper than in the U.S. and it's OK if we cannot use our insurance. I began to worry more after I saw this at the American Lyme Disease Foundation's website here:

Early treatment of LD (within the first few weeks after initial infection) is
straightforward and almost always results in a full cure. Treatment begun after
the first three weeks will also likely provide a cure, but the cure rate
decreases the longer treatment is delayed.

So, the conservative approach of our infectologist friend concerns me right now. On the other hand, I worry if giving him antibiotics would make the diagosis more difficult, considering that the blood serum antibody test is not always accurate (according to several sites about the disease) -- if the test is only done after we go back to the U.S., for example.

I took pictures of the rash, but I had to do it with my mom's camera, which has lower resolution and not a very good lens -- for some strange reason, my camera (the one with the fancy lens) decided to die or "faint" (hopefully temporarily) this morning. I can post some tomorrow. Life goes on over here -- we were planning to travel for three hours for a hot water springs resort/water park in Olímpia, São Paulo state, but we've decided to spend only 24h at a fancy hotel in Águas de Lindóia, a mineral springs town, so the kids can enjoy the indoor heated pool and other facilities, including three wonderful meals.

OK, I have to go now. I'll probably post again tomorrow.