Well, it has been years since Aidan has had a really bad bout of what we have dubbed "mystery hives". We don't know what causes them. There is no correlation to any foods or anything like that. He does tend to get them after having a virus or cold, but it's usually a few on his abdomen, and benadryl clears them right up. But not this time.
He came home from school with them starting up one day, so I gave him benadryl and it seemed to help,
but the next morning when he woke up he was absolutely covered and he said they itched. I gave him more benadryl and emailed his teacher to let her know he was OK, but he might be itchy.
She ended up calling me at about 11am to come get him because poor bubba had started to complain that they were on his feet and it hurt to walk!
So I called the pediatrician because at this point I knew he needed steroids like the last time it got really bad. They had no sick appts, and transferred me to a triage nurse who was going to talk to his doctor and call me back.
In the meantime, Krysta and I took him out to lunch with us, and for frozen yogurt, too!
He opted for a salad for lunch. Weirdo.
And basically ate a bowl of candy at Tutti Frutti (with a touch of frozen yogurt, lol) You can see how fat his face was getting at this point.
We decided to make a trip to the craft store, and at that point the hives were starting to flare up horribly, and quite honestly, this mama started to panic.
I called the pediatrician back and asked my the triage nurse hadn't called me back after almost 3 hours, and she said just take him to urgent care.
So we stopped and picked up Mason at school and headed to the local ER.
They sent someone out into the waiting room almost immediately to make sure it wasn't an anaphylactic reaction (which this allergy mama is thankful for, even though I knew 100% he wasn't in any danger of having trouble breathing.) They got us in pretty quickly and lots of ppl came in to evaluate him. I was super impressed with how calm and polite he was to everyone. I guess when Daddy is a surgeon, you become comfortable with ppl in scrubs!
They asked him to take off his shirt and they were all pretty impressed with how bad the hives were. They were all down his legs and groin too, and his poor booty was swollen into one giant red hive.
I've noticed as they get worse, they started to blend together and go from multiple hives to larger swollen areas. And he was itching like crazy.
So after a gigantic copay we ended up with exactly what I knew he needed.
A script for steroids.
Sigh.
Later that evening Krysta and I were dropping the boys off for a "parent's night out" at Mason's school, and by the time we picked them back up, Aidan was pretty much hive0free! It was such a relief to this Mama!!
Headed to PNO, and super excited about it! Less itchy and in his jammies for the long night of fun ahead!
(Parents Night Out is a neat thing that Mason's preschool does once a month on a Friday. The cost is $20 per kid and you can drop them off at 6:30 and leave them until midnight. They get dinner, and get to play with lots of other kids. For Mason's younger group of friends, they hang out in one of the 3 yr old classrooms, and at the end of the night they pull out the cots and let them lay down and watch movies until it gets late, and lots of the little ones fall asleep. Aidan brings a sleeping bag and the older kids lay them out in a big back gym-type area and watch movies, and they can fall asleep too if they want.)
