Doctors Visits

Even though Samantha is almost 5 months old, we just had her four month check-up due to the holidays. She now weighs 12 lbs. 9 oz. and I think she's 26 in long...yes, I said, "think". It was sort of hard for me to concentrate because I was supposed to be there for her check-up and ended up with both her check-up and a sick visit for James.

At 6 PM on Thursday James started getting hives all over his little body. Immediately my mind started reeling...what had he eaten? Had he gotten into something while I wasn't looking? Had he touched my poinsettia plant when I brought it inside? So, since I already had Samantha's check-up appt Friday morning I just took him with me. Well, it turned out that the hives were a result of him having Strep. Now he has had strep before, but never like this. After the doctors appt, we went and filled his prescription for amoxicillen, and we also were told to give him benadryl for the hives for the next 72 hours. Trust me, I wish it ended there...

Saturday he woke-up looking positively AWFUL! Which I already knew that the hives would LOOK really bad, but I didn't know it would be THAT bad. By the afternoon his hives started looking like bruises. This scared me and had me calling the children's healthcare nurse advice line. I ended up speaking to a doctor who asked us to come in. By this time the hives are everywhere...his neck, his face, his little eye lids, his chest, tummy, on his legs, under his diaper...and his feet were swollen. So, I tried not to panic, but I was glad they told us to come in (I know it sounds crazy, but I feel silly whenever I go to the ER and nothing can be done...this has never happened with James but with me a lot!). The people at Children's Healthcare were absolutely WONDERFUL. James quickly became quite the spectacle with several people coming in to view his rash. Often when this type of rash happens it does not get as bad as it had on James, so everyone wanted to see it. My son, the overachiever already. I told him that mommy wants him to do his best in everything...I guess he took it a little too literal! They determined that the rash probably started a a product of the strep, but it most probably got worse in a reaction to the amoxicillen. They called the rash some very long name that I could probably never pronounce, let alone spell. He'll be fine but will look awful for 1-4 weeks, which is how long the hives typically last. He really looks like we have beaten him, but I'm at least glad that he'll be ok. And I didn't feel silly leaving and knowing that nothing could be done...I felt relieved that my baby was alright. Also, it did end up that they changed his meds for the strep and gave him something prescription strength for the hives and itching.

I took pictures of the rash, but Andy and I didn't want to post them for the world to see since our blog is open to the public. But to our friends if you would like to see just so you don't freak out if it happens to you, then just let me know and I'll e-mail them to you. They really are something to see.

This definitely added some unexpected twists to my weekend! My kids are always keeping me on my toes!!