Poor Kate

Yesterday morning Kate woke up with a little bit of a rash on her forehead and when we changed her clothes I noticed that she had some little bumps on her tummy and back.  I didn't think too much of it, thought she maybe had an allergic reaction to something and it would go away. As the day progressed it didn't go away, and in the afternoon the dots just exploded. They turned bright red and started spreading all over her tummy, back, arms and starting on her legs. I called my trusty sister Bridgett, who is a doctor, and she came over to look at her. She didn't recognize it at all and started calling doctor friends to get opinions. At this point I'm starting to freak out a little bit. Kate has been immunized for chicken pox, so I didn't think that could be it, but when Bridgett was stumped as to what it was, I started to get nervous. So then I started the debate of, 'should I take her to the ER tonight, or can it wait till the morning?'. About this time Ryan was waking up (yes, he's on nights again) and I asked him to give Kate a blessing. After the blessing we decided to just watch her through the night to make sure her mouth or throat didn't swell up and take her to the Pediatrician first thing in the morning.

These were taken last night. Her poor face is all red and swollen!

You think this is bad, it was twice that bad the next morning.

Ouch! It just looks like it hurts.

Since I was by myself last night, I set my alarm every 2 hours and got up to check on her. She was fine, but by this morning it had spread all over her face, in her ears and just looked horrible. I just wanted to cry for her. I got her an appointment first thing with our Pediatrician, Dr. Hayden, and my mom came and took Clark so I didn't have to take him to the doctors too. 

Turns out that it is hives. I didn't think it could be an allergic reaction because nothing has changed. She hasn't had any different foods, medications, nothing. So what Dr. Hayden says is that she probably got some kind of virus and instead of her body fighting it, it treated it like an allergy and had a massive allergic reaction. I had been giving her some allergy medicine that wasn't helping- come to find out I needed to give her 3 times what I was giving her! He also prescribed another type of allergy medicine and a steroid to help her body fight whatever it is. After the appointment we filled all the prescriptions, got some good anti-itch cream and I loaded her up with the drugs. Within an hour the bumps had gone from screaming red to soft pink and the swelling in her face had gone WAY down.
Dr. Hayden says that it will probably take about a week for it to go away, but she is not contagious in any way- it just looks horrible! By this afternoon she was starting to act herself again and get some energy back. It's still super itchy, so I think we'll go through a few tubes of anti- itch medicine by the time we're done.
It is just awful to watch your child suffer, and see things happen to their body and you have no way of stopping it or making it better. I know this is a very small thing, and it makes my heart go out to those parents who have, or have had, truly sick kids. What a painful experience. It also makes me grateful for modern medicine and good doctors. It only took an hour at the doctors office and a few minutes to get a prescription filled to make her feel better. I can't even imagine what people went through watching their kids suffer and having no medicine to give them. I am blessed!