PPPFFFFFFffffffftttttttt.........

I'm having a bit of a grouch attack...

Beanie's staph rash is fabulous...she's still got some scars that are trying to get new skin...but she went back in the pool Thursday...Great, right? Of course right.

HOWEVER, she got up this morning with a pretty major rash...kinda bumpy, heat rash looking thing on her face and arms and legs...seems not to be on her trunk.

BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH! AND BOTHER!

Well, I'm running under the assumption that this is a reaction to the antibiotic...I suppose it COULD be chicken pox or measles, but the rash-free-trunk seems to say, "Nah"...that and the fact this is my vaccinated kid, as opposed to my kid that was allergic to her vax.

AND, of course...it's SATURDAY! SATURDAY! BAH!

To those of you without children...Saturday means that if she truly needs medical attention we are on our way to the E.R. Ever had to take a child with an unknown illness to the E.R.? It lands on the unpleasant scale somewhere between licking a slimey pig nose and biting into something you thought was whipped cream and discovering it was actually rotten milk curds...it's NOT a good time.

At this moment...she is lazing on the couch. I gave her a little Benedryl to see what happens and I'm monitoring her...and everyone else again.

I told my mom that she MIGHT want to stay quarantined in her room for awhile...She's trying to leave next week to go see my brothers in Florida. Hey S&J, you want her now?? One word...INCUBATION. And no, I'm not TRYING to keep her, I swear.

Anyway...so in case you were wondering what was going on...that's it...we're stuck in the house AGAIN. PPPPPPpppppFFFFFFFffffffft.

P.S. Bubba just walked in from the gym...I showed him Miss Bean. Want to know what his first words were? "BUT IT'S SATURDAY...what are you getting sick on SATURDAY for?" (then he noogied her...)


See ya around...maybe.

Update on The Kid...

Well, you will be pleased to hear that she is on the mend.

She still had a pretty good fever on Wednesday morning...around 100...which for this particular child is huge, I can count on one hand the number of times in her life she's RUN a fever. By about noon, I could tell she was starting to feel better because she was getting bored and emotional. By lunch time we'd had two unwarranted crying jags and several bouts of sheer crabbiness.

At quiet time my suggestion to "lie down and rest your widdle head" was met with fierce grumbling and then complete SILENCE when she pretty much passed out. I love when I'm right.

By the time I changed her bandages for the second time that day at around 6pm, I was pretty sure her temperature was down and her rash looked like it was responding. I won't say it looked "better" exactly, because, well, ick...but it was darkening and seemed drier. I'll put these in small in deference to those that just don't need to see them...if you want to look more closely, click on the image and it will take you to a larger shot.



Here she is all bandaged up for the night...you'll notice the smile. This is one of the first we'd seen since about Sunday afternoon, so TRY not to notice her hair...she's very irritated that I took her picture with her hair that way.



There was one little bump in the "worry" road. When Bubba and I got home from our weekly Care Group, Grandma said that Beanie thought she could feel blisters forming on her lower lip. YIKES. When I looked at her, it looked like she might be right. But prayers were going up and the antibiotic was working and we found in the morning that her lips were only chapped as could be expected in one coming off an off-again on-again fever of 4-5 days.

When we took off the bandages Thursday morning, there were even more signs that the antibiotic was working and we were on the right path...darker, dryer rash, most of the blisters either reduced or broken and dry...etc.



You can see in her eyes that she's feeling better...so good to see the twinkle again.



Thursday afternoon we went to see our Beloved Dr. B. She was very happy to see the progress and be assured that this WAS the right antibiotic even though the scraping was not back from the lab. When we told her that Beanie really was not eating, she asked us a few questions regarding her tummy and agreed that we should back off on one of the herbals to see if her appetite improved. However, as long as she wasn't sick to her stomach or having any other issues in that department we'll start that back up in a few days. Then she told us to keep the bandages OFF! Beanie was SO happy with that...she just hates them during the day. There was one caveat, she has to wear gloves when playing with the Wii remote but only because her sister is still a thumb-sucker...the rest of us are out of the woods with regard to "catching" it from casual touch.

Our Beloved Dr. B says that Bean could go into the pool as early as one week from yesterday, but that a couple more days of immune system building would not be a bad idea. Which also means, we should be able to go to church and other types of social contact very soon. YAY! I REALLY could get out of the house...it'd be okay with me.

I didn't get any pictures of the rash last night...but after several hours of being OUT of the bandages it looked even better. It looks like the rash itself will recede and only leave behind the spots of scabs where blisters actually broke open...there are still plenty of those...but the overall redness is fading...

Here she is after being bandaged for the night last night. Those bandages are only there to keep the ointment on...she was told that if she WANTED to take them off in the night (after 10pm) she could. Her grandma told her that she looked like she had her hands taped up so she could box...so she threw us a fight-face pose...



Scary, indeed.

Thank you all so much for your prayers and good thoughts...we've all needed to hear them...

See ya around...

Staph...

Yesterday I posted on Facebook that we'd had an Emergency appointment with a Dermatologist for Beanie and I've gotten a few questions wondering how she's doing. Turns out she has a pretty good staph infection that until yesterday was just spreading...it started on the hand where she usually gets eczema and has spread to the other hand, her inner elbow and yesterday up into her hairline.

On Monday, I called to make an appointment for the Dermatologist (Thursday), and for our Naturopath who got me in right away. The Naturopath thought there may be an underlying parasite issue, but that I needed to get to a dermatologist because whatever was on top was WAY beyond what he was comfortable treating and he was glad to know the appointment had been made. I love that my Naturopath knows his own limits and makes sure I know it...no "God" complex in that one.

When Beanie woke with a spot of this in her hair yesterday (Tuesday) I called the Dermo and said, "Either get me in or I'm headed to ER"...so we got in at 10am. She was NOT particularly friendly or helpful...she took one look at this MASSIVE rash and said "oh that's infected, it's just contact dermatitis" ...during the 4-5 minutes she spent with us, she didn't want to hear anything, not that Beanie had eczema, not that she had an active fever and had for 2 days, not that she had been in a swim meet with a bunch of kids 9 days before, but hadn't been in the pool since...not when I noticed it getting WORSE than standard eczema...not what I'd tried...as a matter of fact to everything I said, she would interrupt and say, "I'm sure that aggravated it"...the best example was me saying, "She was in a swim meet" the doctor interrupts saying, "I'm sure that aggravated it" and me saying "But she hasn't BEEN in the pool in over a week"...but she did it with the cream we've always used for her eczema, the band-aids etc.

At some point she FINALLY said the word "infection" again...and I jumped on it, "What type of infection, bacterial or viral" and she FINALLY said, "Probably staph". I'm sorry, "probably staph"? Like it's no big deal this thing that is taking over my kid's body. She said that she was prescribing a heavy antibiotic but no real explanation of anything. I said, "Are there side effects I should watch for?" she said "It could make her sun-sensitive". I said, "Should I give her Probiotics?" she said "That's probably not necessary"...WHAT? Anyone else think that sets off an alarm? I asked her when I should look for there to be a change for the better? She said 3-4 days (this is VERY important in hind-site) and that she would want to see us in 2 weeks. (another VERY important thing.)

So she gave us this prescription and left the room...at the reception desk it occurred to me there were 3 prescriptions and no explanation of timing or wound care and I still didn't know if I should put band-aids or gauze on her so I made the nurse call her back. She said that I could and then left again.

Well I got home. I was perplexed. I do NOT just give my kids stuff cause the doctor says I should, and ESPECIALLY a doctor that didn't even WEIGH my kid before handing me an antibiotic that by all "google" accounts is a liver killer. So because I am who I am...I called my most beloved Pediatrician.

Dr. B has proven herself once again.

She actually WEIGHED Beanie, took her temperature and took a scraping to send to the lab to confirm what on EARTH this is (very scary to a little girl who hurts so much, but not painful because Dr. B is awesome-oh, and not something the Dermo bothered to do) and talked us through the entire protocol...including the use of this scary antibiotic...EXACTLY what to look for with side effects...how to clean and bandage the wounds because make no mistake, Beanie is WOUNDED right now...how to lessen the chances of anyone else picking it up...and how to lessen Bean's chances of the after effects of this kind of antibiotic.

And get this...she INSISTS on seeing us in two days...wanna see why?

I'm only going to show you one part of the rash...the most DRAMATIC part...this is her elbow on Sunday afternoon and again on Tuesday morning...just to give you a clue how fast this is spreading...



It didn't start looking worse than her standard eczema until about Thursday and it stayed on that one hand in that localized spot until Saturday. Once it started moving there was no slow down...with it moving THIS fast waiting 3-4 days to call the Dermo MIGHT just be too late to save her face. But obviously the Dermatologist wasn't interested, based on her answers to my question.

What's more, I gave the prescription to Dr. B just to tell me how to use it. She said, "You know what, you couldn't have even gotten this filled...there is no dosage information on it." Well of course there wasn't, they didn't weigh her, how could they figure dosage?

So I've just kept the prescription for my records. I'm not sure that I'll ever do anything with it, but I'm praying about it. I don't want to do anything right now, because I'm mad. And the reality is that the Dermo DID prescribe the right drug so technically she was right...but it was useless to me until someone was able to explain what to do with it and could dose it properly.

As for Beanie. She doesn't feel good and she's still running a fever so she is NOT BETTER yet. But nothing looks worse for the first time since Saturday and the rash on her elbow looks darker, like it's trying to scab and her hands are not quite as swollen. We have an appointment with Dr. B Thursday afternoon. Maybe the scraping will be back but at the very least we should be able to see if we are on the right path BEFORE the weekend...an important feature for all worried Mommas everywhere.

So that's the update for the time being.

Please keep us in your prayers...

See ya around...

SWINE FLU??? How the media creeps into my child's brain...

Monday is always fun for blogging because something ALWAYS happens at church...ALWAYS. Yesterday was no different.

I help with the Children's Worship portion of our Sunday school. This would be called Song Service in some of my extended family's churches...but it is basically the time that we all sing together...clap...do hand motions...learn great songs...and all around have fun and get in the mood for the lessons that will follow.

Now our little "band" consists of Mr. B doing guitar and vocals, Me doing a few vocals and crowd management and a various smattering of kids...we have one that plays guitar, one that plays drums and several others that sing. Now this "band" has been through a lot of changes this year...and one of the things that is starting to be an accomplished goal, is that they are STARTING to sing together and actually sound pretty good. We still couldn't lift Mr. B out...but I can NOT be mic'd MOST of the service because the kids are starting to carry it...YEAH.

The kids are starting to be pretty good friends and that's good because Mr. B and I are constantly talking and improving the songs and telling them to shhhh...or talk quietly among themselves...Well during our last few minutes of clean up yesterday...you know coiling cords, finding mics that traveled, putting away percussion etc. I hear Bean and the young man who is our second guitar player chatting (we'll call him Rocker). She says with wide eyes and straight face, "My sister has SWINE FLU."

I spun around...

To his credit, Rocker did not fly across the room in horror...but OH did his brows go up..."Really???!!!"

I said quickly, "She does NOT." Bean said, "Yes, she does...she was coughing all night". I assured all bystanders that indeed Bear had been coughing in the night (for about 1/2 an hour)...but that she was just fine or would be shortly...

MOVE ALONG THEN, NOTHING TO SEE HERE...

I was mystified..."WHA??? Swine flu?" So we talked a bit. Apparently our trip to Scottish Rite the other day was very informative to Bean. See they had all these signs up that were talking about covering your cough and washing your hands and really making a big deal. So we talked, in general at the time, about how they were just reminding everybody about how to be extra careful because there was a pretty bad flu going around. I don't think I ever mentioned swine flu...but even if I did, most of the conversation was about ways our family already tries to stay healthy...you know eating right, washing hands, taking our vitamins etc. But all the signs really stuck in her head.

Now, I didn't know it at the time, but we also visited with some friends who definately watch the news and are in medical circles, and Bean got even more information from the kids...SWINE FLU is terrible...it's all arooouuuuunnnnndddd....you could have it tooooooooo...etc.

So when her sister woke her up with her coughing...Bean just simply assumed the worst. Now no matter how I asked the question, she hadn't discovered the information on how dangerous the swine flu is supposed to be (I didn't want to put words in her mouth, just figure out what she'd been told)...and that is probably best because Bean is nothing if not protective of her little sisters. I did enlighten her on the symptoms and circumstances of swine flu...and we both agreed that other than a slight cough, Bear didn't display any of those symptoms.

So to all of you who may now believe that the leader of your children's song service has a child with swine flu...rest assured...Bear is just fine this morning. We spent the day yesterday putting vitamin C in her mouth and vicks on the bottoms of her feet and saline rinse up her nose...and she slept all night and hasn't coughed since. She has no fever. She has no stuffy nose. She does have bright, smilin eyes this morning.

Poor Bean has had to learn a couple of little lessons. First, don't believe everything that you hear...if you hear something that frightens you (or anything really), verify it, question the source and by all means gather MORE information...don't just take it at face value. She is also learning that not everything that comes to her head should come out of her mouth. But then again, who doesn't need THAT lesson once in a while.

So that was fun. After all was said and done Bubba and I had a pretty good laugh.

Ain't kids grand???

See ya around....