Hives!!

As you can see by the pictures, Caitlin had quite an exciting week! This week we found out that she's allergic to Penicillin! She had been taking it for an ear infection and on Tuesday night when I picked her up from daycare, she had a couple of red dots on her arms. They looked like little bites so I decided to keep an eye on them and see how they did. Within a few hours, they had pretty much cleared up so after a checking her temperature about 7 times, a bath, dinner, and her penicillin, I put her to bed. The next morning the marks on her arms were completely gone but she had a couple of new ones on her legs and 2 or 3 dots on her face. She didn't seem bothered by them and still wasn't running a fever or anything so I took her to school and asked the staff to keep an eye on her. At about 9, they called and said that they thought Caitlin had Chicken Pox and thought I should take her to the Doctor. I didn't think she had chicken pox because the marks had faded but left work early to pick her up. Luckily my manager was very understanding :-). When I got there she was sleeping soundly, still had no fever but she was starting to get blotchy spots on her face. Off we went to the Doctor..

After examining her, the Doctor concluded that Caitlin was having an allergic reaction to her medicine. She gave us a new prescription for her ear infection (which was now in both ears) and told me to continue watching her temperature but Caitlin would be fine. She also said that the hives might continue to flare up over the next couple of days but as long as there was no fever, there was no need to worry. We also could not give her anything like Benadryl because she's too young and skin creams wouldn't do any good because the hives were coming from under the skin. I took Caitlin back to school and went back to work. Caitlin had no problems the rest of the day but when I picked her up, the hives looked like they were getting worse. The pictures above are about as bad as they got. Aunt Sarah and Uncle Dan came over to watch Caitlin that night while I went and got her new prescription. Caitlin slept through the night and the next morning the hives had almost completely cleared up. By Friday, she was back to her old self so that's a good thing.

Toni missed all the excitement because she was in Arizona on a business trip but was a bundle of nerves the entire time. I sent her a picture of Caitlin from my phone and had her on speaker phone while I was at the Doctor so she could ask any questions she had as well. She was ready to come home immediately but after talking to the Doctor, we decided to see how things went. Luckily it wasn't a serious allergic reaction or chicken pox! I think it looked a lot worse than it actually was.

Yesterday we took Toni to the Doctor as well. She's been fighting the same cold that caused me to miss 5 days of work about a month ago so she decided to go get some medicine for it. It started really bothering her while she was on her trip. Yesterday I also spent a couple of hours fixing the fence in our back yard. It had almost completely come down and was barely standing. I think I've got it pretty much fixed and hopefully it won't cause any more problems.

The only other news to report this week is that Caitlin picked herself up without any help from us using only the couch! She stood herself up and was looking around for a while. She's going to start walking any day now... :-) She has also started getting her 3rd tooth! Her left top middle tooth has just about broken through her gum and it should be out pretty soon!

Hopefully this coming week won't be as exciting. Work is going well and so far I'm enjoying it. I hope everyone has a great week and hopefully the pictures next week will be of Caitlin not quite so blotchy. :-)