It's really a game of odds.
Take advantage of doctors and proper medicine and you get vastly better odds of surviving and not suffering any long term damage. But only better odds, it's not a sure thing.
That's a great story btw Enoch.
If it's any comfort, the fatality rate of untreated Kawasakis is quite low (wikipedia says 1%), so probably you would not have killed your kid. I have heard however that it can get really scary untreated and easily go past a couple of doctors even after it's clear there's more going on than just a simple flu. So huge kudos to that doctor. Obviously you'd rather have the almost-zero fatality of proper hospital treatment than rolling the die.
(In Finland we get a few dozen cases of Kawasakis every year, so while rare it's not on the same "completely obscure" level. From what I've heard, it's a typical disease they use anecdotally here to remind medical students why you really need to check the kid that comes in with flu-like symptoms, and you'll run into it soon enough if you work in a relevant hospital.)
(Heh, the stuff that sticks in your head after dating a doctor for a while.)
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