The Fever That Wouldn't Break: Kawasaki Disease Family Stories

Inside this volume

Fifty first-person accounts describe Kawasaki disease, mostly through the eyes of parents, with a grandmother, a stepfather, a teenage sister, a support line volunteer and adults who had it themselves. Many families were first told it was a virus, scarlet fever, strep, Covid, a neck lump to drain or appendicitis. The patients range from a four-month-old in Dubai to a fifteen-year-old hockey player in Calgary, and one writer was diagnosed at thirty-four. Places run from a Montana ranch three hours from a children's hospital to Osaka, Lagos, Bucharest and a holiday hospital in Thailand. Treatments include immunoglobulin, second doses, steroids, infliximab and months of aspirin, with questions about flu shots and a pause in vaccines. Daily life comes through in a single mother keeping her job, a night-shift father reading texts, a mother finding words through an interpreter, a stepfather not allowed to sign, peeling hands, sore knees, a headache after the drip and a girl teased at school over her skin. Many children recovered quickly with healthy hearts, and one boy was discharged from follow-up after ten years. Others faced harder news: arteries described as giant, a year of two tablets, a wait outside the cath lab, and a fear of every temperature that outlasted the illness.

Who it's for

For parents waiting for a diagnosis or living with follow-up scans, grandparents and siblings, and adults who had Kawasaki disease as children and want to hear the whole story.

Format · Instant download · PDF & EPUB · Fifty first-person accounts · PDF: 233 pages

A collection of personal testimony, offered as companion reading — not medical advice.

• 50 single-author testimonies from real people
• A short, plain-language introduction to the topic
• Editor's note, contents page, and curated resource list
• Professional interior typesetting and an original cover

Every purchase includes a print-quality PDF (best for desktop, tablet, and printing) and a reflowable EPUB (best for Kindle, Apple Books, Kobo, and phones). Files are DRM-free. You can download both instantly from the order-confirmation screen, and we email them to your inbox as well, so your books are always within reach.