PITTSBURG, Texas — Logan Duncan is 4-years-old.
As the preschooler was doing what preschoolers do—playing with his friends, his mother, Di Ana Fitzgerald, walked CBS19 through what she calls the worst experience of her life as a mother.
When Logan came home from school, his mom noticed this scratch on his neck and over three days, his health took a turn.
"I got a call from my ex-mother-in-law and she said, 'Hey, Logan is covered in a head to toe rash. I'm not sure what's going on,'" Fitzgerald remembered.
This day was his first trip to the emergency room. Doctors gave him a prescription and sent him home.
However, the medicine wasn’t working.
"He is in unbearable pain," Fitzgerlad said. "He's just screaming, he's crying. And there was no consoling him."
She took him back to a doctor. When the doctor gently grabbed his face to take a look inside his mouth, Logan’s skin slid off his face.
"Like layers of skin just gone,” Fitzgerald said.
Logan was diagnosed with a skin disorder called Staphylococcal Scarlet Fever.
Pediatrician Dr. Rebekah Diamond says kids can contract this after a cold virus or a getting a cut, like the one Logan had.
"Staphylococcal Scarlet Fever is a condition that looks a lot like scarlet fever, but it's actually more closely related to toxic shock syndrome. And it's caused by a different type of bacteria, which is like a staph infection," Dr. Diamond said.
On the outside, his most prominent symptoms included his pain and very fragile or flaky skin.
"[On the inside] it's basically the way in which the toxin that the bacteria produce are reacting with just different organs, including your skin," said Dr. Diamond. "Your skin is an organ in your body and causing a very kind of complex reaction."
As Logan lie in his hospital bed, in the middle of the night, he started violently shaking as if he was having a seizure.
His mother say watching her son in agony was the worst experience she’s ever had.
“When you have kids, people tell you about all the hard things about parenting, but they don't talk about how helpless you feel," Fitzgerald said. "In a situation like that. You know, your child wants nothing more than to be comforted by its parent. And you can't even touch him because you'll make it worse."
To lift his spirits, Logan’s preschool classmates sent him a video to wish him well.
Overnight, Fitzgerald says Logan’s demeanor completely changed.
“He was like a brand new kid," Fitzgerald said. "He was he was up and playing, you know, as much as he could with an IV attached to him.”
He was eating again and doctors checked him out before deciding it was safe to send him home.
As Logan rests at home, his skin will take a while to fully heal.
Dr. Diamond says Staphylococcal Scarlet Fever is extremely rare. Around on in 100,000 people contract it.
She added if parents notice persistent fevers, redness that spreads on the skin or any type of swelling or pus, they should bring their child in to get checked out by a doctor.