OMG this has been one of the scariest days for me as a parent. Ijust thought that taking my 18 month old to have an xray was hard, boy was I in for a whole new set of difficulties.
Yesterday afternoon as we were leaving our play date I noticed that Sam had what looked like an ant bite on her arm. I thought it was strange since we were only outside long enough to get from the house to the car, but blew it off. Last night I was giving her a bath and noticed she had a couple on her leg and one small one on her back too. I was still dumfounded how she got bit in that short amount of time, but they were tiny and again looked like ant bites. I don’t think I could have even seen it in a picture if I had taken one. Sam went to bed, I talked on the phone to my friend Sara for a while since Patrick is out of town for work, and about midnight I called it a night.
This morning at 1:30, I heard Sam crying and figured that she was wet, since she hardly ever wakes during the night anymore, and went to go change her. I didn’t turn on the light at first because I didn’t want to wake her up all the way so I could lay her back down. As I was changing her though, I could feel the welts on her bottom. I turned on the light, breaking the cardinal rule of keeping the room dim so you don’t wake the drowsy toddler, but was so glad I did. She was covered in welts.
At first I thought maybe it’s chicken pox, I didn’t know what they would look like, but figured that was all it could be since Sam wasn’t allergic to anything we knew of, and they were everywhere. I put Sam in some long sleeve cotton footie pajamas so she couldn’t scratch. I called my mom at 2am to ask her what she thought and she said she didn’t know. At the time they looked a lot like red and bites. I googled pictures of chicken pox and ruled that out though because they didn’t have anything in them. Then I waited. Sam couldn’t sleep she was so itchy. I gave her some Tylenol because she had a low grad fever and hoped she would fall back to sleep. That didn’t happen. Around 4am I went to change her diaper again, the rash had spread and looked redder and definitely were not pox, they were flat and had what looked like little bruises in the center. I called the pediatricians office and talked to the nurse who had the doctor call me back in less than 5 minutes! She said it sounded like an allergic reaction and told me to give Sam some Benadryl every 6 hours, to STOP giving her the amoxicillin that she had been prescribed for her ear infection last week, and to come and see our regular pediatrician in the morning when the office opened. I did what she told me too, and Sam fell asleep around 5:30. I laid her down but couldn’t help but stay awake to keep checking on her.
At 8 I called our pediatricians office and got an appointment with our regular pediatrician Dr. Meadows at 11. She didn’t have an earlier appointment because she was at the hospital checking on new babies. I figured we could wait til then and that I would get the chance to give Sam another dose of Benadryl before we went. When she woke up from her “nap” it was worse. I waited as long as I could, but left and got to the office about 15 minutes early hoping they could do something for my poor crying miserable itchy baby.
Our nurses were amazing, and our doctor said that she felt about 95% sure that it was an allergic reaction to the amoxicillin that she had been taking for the last week, and that Sam is allergic to penicillin and put a big sticker in her chart. She could see the welts on Sams face, and her ears were red and almost swollen shut, but when I took off Sam’s pajamas, Dr. Meadows was amazed at the severity. She said that the welts were “very impressive”, not something you want to hear! She called in another doctor and another nurse to discuss the medication possibilities and decided to go ahead and put her on a steroid to go along with the Benadryl because of the severity. Dr. Meadows said she had never seen a reaction this bad that didn’t involve a closed up throat. Immediately I cried. What if Sam had suffocated because I didn’t know that the bug bites weren’t bug bites! I wouldn’t have woken up at 1:30 AM to go check on bug bites, if she hadn’t cried out, I wouldn’t have woken up at all. It makes my heart hurt to think of the possibility. Dr. Meadows reassured me that I did everything I was supposed to, and after I showed her the pictures on my phone of the difference from 1:30 til our appointment, she was floored by the fast progression. We are so lucky it wasn’t worse! Our favorite nurse came in to see what had happened, and to play with Sam a little. It makes me feel so good to have such a supportive doctor and staff for our little girl.
We got Sam’s prescription filled and I got her a chicken nugget happy meal and went back to the house. She was still eating really well, but was so itchy. I gave her a oatmeal bath, and she kicked and played in the water so that made me feel like a better momma, and then let her lay down for a short nap. When she got up, the redness was so much better, but the welts now look like purple bruises. The doctor warned me that the capillaries bust and it looks like large bruises, so I am really glad she warned me. I cannot tell you how much I cried today. It’s not the most terrible thing in the world, but to see your child suffer is miserable! This afternoon she was feeling much better and kept pulling me around the living room so we could dance to the hot dog song on Mickey mouse clubhouse. That’s my girl!
Tonight my parents came by to check on us. Her because of the reaction, me because I was a mess and Patrick is still out of town. I really needed the reassurance, and somehow they just knew. Mom and I let Sam get another bath and she played some more, almost back to acting like herself, just with a little bit of red and purple stuff on her.
So moral of the story, just because your kid doesn’t have a bad reaction the first time they have a medication, doesn’t mean that they won’t the next time. Also, always keep Benadryl in the house!
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Dear God,
Thank you for everything that you do for us. Thank you for watching over us today and letting this just be a bad reaction and not a fatal one. Thank you for giving doctors the medicine to help Sam to get over this reaction, and for letting our doctor be so amazing! Thank you for helping me make it through this ordeal without my husband by my side. He called as much as he could, but being alone was difficult and I knew that YOU would take care of us. Thank you for our wonderful friends and family who showed their concern and sent more prayers up to you asking for you to help Sam. Thank you for my precious little girl and for her amazing attitude and resilience through this whole day! Thank you!
AMEN
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Thursday, August 18, 2011
So apparently my daughter is allergic to Penicillin!
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