The Ultimate Owie

Norah had 'sinusitis' (ie, your kid has had a cold for 2 weeks and we don't know if it is anything more serious than that) last week and was prescribed Amoxicillin, a run of the mill antibiotic and the same one she was prescribed last summer when she had an ear infection. No muss, no fuss. She took it and got better.

Yesterday (Saturday) was the ninth day of a ten day course and in the morning when I was getting her dressed I noticed a few small hives on her hand and leg. I am pretty sensitive (no pun intended) to hives because I deal with them on a daily basis, and so I called the advice nurse at the pediatrician's office. She said to stop giving her the antibiotic because that was probably what was causing the hives and to give her Benadryl if it got any worse or she seemed uncomfortable.

We went about our day as usual. BVZ took her to the park for an hour and then went to work. We did some errands and went to IKEA (we were there to look at bookcases but were distracted by how fun the toddler beds were to climb on) and got ice cream.

We got home and were skyping with Bubby when I noticed that the hives had spread all the way down her arm and up her leg. BVZ said something to the effect of 'that kind of looks like chicken pox' and I said, 'oh shit, please don't tell me that I let her roll around all the beds at IKEA with chicken pox'. Then I thought it might be measles and said, 'oh shit, please don't tell me that she caught measles from rolling around all the beds at IKEA.' (Disclaimer: we are very, very, very pro-vaccination, but we also have decided to vaccinate Norah on a much slower schedule than what the American Pediatric Association recommends. We have every intention of getting her both the chicken pox and MMR vaxes, we just haven't done it yet. She's not in daycare so her risk of exposure is lower and I just don't want to overwhelm her neurological system if I don't have to right now). Then BVZ said, 'please stop saying shit.'

We stripped her down and found this.

I talked to Aunt Stephanie and she told me that Megan was very allergic to penicillin, but didn't have the reaction until the third or fourth time she took it. Norah didn't seem to be bothered a bit by the rash and I figured it couldn't be that serious if she didn't even care. So, we gave her some Benadryl and called it a night.

This morning she still had the hives but instead of going to the park she wanted to do this.
As the day went on the hives got bigger and redder and more raised and Norah got more sad and more agitated. I made her an appointment with urgent care even though the advice nurse said she didn't need to be seen and by the time we got to the doctor her knees were the size of softballs and her hands were so swollen that she cried if I touched her. It hurt her too much to be carried across the parking lot but she screamed when she tried to walk. It's kind of hard to tell, but here you can kind of see how inflamed her knees were.

I won't post the pictures I took of her poor little body while we waited for the doctor (the nurse told me to since she'll have to be seen by her regular pediatrician tomorrow and it will be helpful for her to see what it looked like today), but she was on fire and in pain in a way that she has never experienced before. All she wanted was me to hold her, but holding her caused her more pain. It sucked so, so, so bad. The doctor immediately said it was an allergic reaction to something and since it was so systemic it had to either be food or medication. She hasn't had any new food in weeks, or even months, so the only likely culprit is the antibiotic. He said it was much more severe than a typical Amoxicillin reaction, but not outside the realm of possibility. His big concern was the swelling in her knees. He had her walk across the room so he could assess how bad it was and she took one step, collapsed, and started screaming 'owie knee, owie knee, owie knee'. I, of course, immediately scooped her up and then burst into tears.

He wanted to give her antihistamines and a steroid, but brought in another doctor for a second opinion (I could tell he wasn't sure what to do and I am so thankful he knew it and brought in someone else). She agreed that the swelling was a real concern, but that Norah is so young and it would be better to try aggressive antihistamines before going to steroids. We are alternating every two hours with Zyrtec and a prescription antihistamine and she improved significantly within just a few hours.

This is what the rash looked like about 3 hours after we gave her the first dose.

It has gotten much better on her arms and legs below the knees and is the worst in high friction areas (armpits and diaper area). We let her go commando for the better part of the afternoon and lay on the couch watching Sesame Street and Curious George. She was walking again by the early evening and we even had a potty breakthrough! (She was sans diaper but hadn't peed in hours so I was actually getting a bit concerned. Finally she starting shouting pee! pee! and then grabbed a diaper and peed in it! I couldn't believe it). Our excitement was short lived however, because not 15 minutes later she pooped on the floor (hardwood, not carpet, thank goodness).

Anyway, she is on the road to recovery. Never a dull moment around here.