Little Creatures

Earlier today, I took William to his first pediatrician's appointment. This is the doctor he'll normally see for checkups and unpredicted afflictions; we have another appointment this Saturday with our adoption pediatrician at CHOP.

Well, it's official: we have a giant of a baby measuring 29.5 inches (90th percentile) and weighing in at 21.5 lbs. (75th percentile). I was surprised to hear he didn't weight more since my arms have been sore from carrying him around all day long.

According to the pediatrician, all looks well except for the nasty rash on William's leg. After consulting with the other physician in the practice, the two doctors concluded that it isn't eczema that has our little boy itching, as we had thought. They suspect it is scabies.

6 hours ago, I didn't know too much about scabies, other than it sounded like a cross between scarabs (remember those skin-piercing creepy-crawlies from "The Mummy" movies?) and rabies. I wasn't too far off. For those who don't know, scabies are actually mites that burrow under your skin and produce unmitigated itching and rashes. The condition is common in adopted children from China and other southern Asian countries, but less so in adopteees from Taiwan because of the better hygiene conditions and the higher standard of healthcare

If William really does have scabies and the horrible itching that accompanies it, this may explain his frequent sleep disturbances. He tends to wake every half hour to hour crying. He doesn't fully rouse, but if we leave him alone to return to sleep on his own, his crying only escalates and runs the risk of waking everyone in the house. One of us has to get up with him, walk him around the room for a few minutes, then put him down to sleep again. The frequent awakenings really do make it feel like we are caring for a newborn instead of an almost 8 month-old baby.

So, if slathering him in a dose of prescription Permethrin will help him to stop itching and to sleep better, this is what we will have to do. Hopefully the medication will kill off the mites, a process which can take up to 4 weeks. Afterwards, he should be sleeping like a - ahem - a happy, itchless, child.