Really, Really bad timing

A few days ago, I noticed some red dots around Halle's neck that looked like petechiae. After seeing these I started to think of some complaints Halle had made over the last week or so, like saying her wrist or knee hurt, and she had been getting a lot of bruises lately on her legs and back. Thinking about all these things seemed to connect something in my mind from something I learned a long time ago, but I couldn't quite figure out what it was. Whatever was floating around up there didn't seem to be a normal thing, and had me a little concerned so I set out to see what all these symptoms add up to. I knew that this could all be easily explained by normal things. Halle has had a cough for more than a week, which could easily cause the petechiae, and the weather has warmed up and we're playing outside for hours every day which adds up to lots of bumps and bruises. (plus she is Annie's child, and apparently inherited her ability to bruise like a peach). But just to be sure, I wanted to see what it could be, and satisfy my nagging thought that it might be something sinister.

I went to a website called wrongdiagnosis.com, which has a pretty lousy reputation among doctors, but has a feature where you can type in all the symptoms and get a list of possible diagnosis. So I type in "petechiae and joint pain in children." First on the list is Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia......holy crap, that's what my mind was trying to identify. I guess something stuck from all those pathology lectures. Even though I am 99% sure that Halle does not have ALL, I can't help but get a pit in my stomach at the thought of it. It doesn't help that I am on my Pediatric Medicine Rotation and happen to be on Hematology/Oncology this week. I've seen these kids on chemo, and picturing Halle dealing with that just made my heart sink in the worst way. So I click on the link for ALL to learn more and the most unbelievable thing happened. An advertisement for Chili's comes up with their new slogan "Life's too short for bland meals!"

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! Talk about bad timing for an advertisement! I know Chili's is just paying for advertising on their site and if I were looking up plantar warts I would have had the same result. It just struck me as the most callus and inopportune line. Thinking of Halle with the possibility of a devestating disease, and getting this stupid line from a stupid restaraunt, as if any of that mattered when thinking of such a crappy thing.

Incidentally, I spoke with the Hem/occ doctor the next day, who told me it was most likely nothing, but petechiae in kids is never normal, so it wouldn't hurt to have the pediatrician look. Halle went just to make sure, and it seemed to be just from the cough, and they have gone away since. So it was nothing. There is a saying I hear all the time in dentistry and medicine, "When you hear hoof beats, expect to see a horse, not a zebra." That's the problem with medical knowledge, common things are common, but with knowledge about the rare, it comes to your mind and worries you.