Tuesday, December 14, 2010

It didn't even cross my mind

For the last month or so Maddie has been battling one nasty sinus infection. She has been on two different medications and as of last Thursday there was no sign of the infection left, good deal! Then late Saturday evening she came into my room burning up, fever, sore throat. Here we go again I think. So I treat the fever Sunday hoping it is just a cold with an elevated temperature. Enter Sunday night at 2:00 am, she comes in again fever is 103.4, cold compress to the head snuggle up to my little heating pad. Outside the wind is whipping and howling and I start having contractions. Really? Natalie comes in, because she realizes Maddie isn't in their room. I can't sleep, Maddie can't sleep and Natalie won't sleep. I wake Tom up and ask him to handle Natalie, because Maddie has finally fallen asleep and I need to lay back down and hope the contractions stop. After about 4 in 40 minutes and a lot of water the contractions stop, luckily! Maddie still wakes up with a fever, headache and sore throat. Strep I think, yup okay off to the doctor again. So we are treating her for strep and last night we notice a few little bumps on her bottom, I think it is from her pull ups, she still has accidents at night. Then this morning she has more bumps everywhere, not just on her bottom. Then this afternoon after gymnastics I am changing her and the rash is everywhere, good lord I think what could that be from? Poor thing is itching and scratching and it just looks painful. So I call the doctor thinking she has Scarlet Fever, because it comes from a strain of Strep. A few questions from the nurse and she checks with the doctor and low and behold she is having an allergic reaction. Good to know I say, as I am glad it isn't Scarlet Fever. Then I sit back and start thinking, wait allergic reaction, can't that be really bad, do I need to worry, what if she stops breathing. So I call the doctor again, thankfully, they inform me that she would have already started to have breathing difficulty if it was going to happen and that if she takes the medicine in the future her reaction could be worse. Okay, I am relieved now and we can concentrate on helping alleviate the pain from the current rash and she gets a new medicine for the other symptoms. What amazes me most is that an allergic reaction didn't even cross my mind. I thought for sure it was something else and the sad thing is I read the little drug reaction pamphlet and still didn't think about it. So to all you parents out there, make sure you double check the side effects and allergic reaction symptoms for all medicine, because even though they may be rare, they can be scary and they can happen to you!