Sick Days

So last week was a fun one at our house. (Insert sarcasm.) It all started on our way to Waco for Baylor Homecoming. Bailey developed a stuffy nose and cough. I assumed it was allergies and gave her some meds from the mini pharmacy that I took with me. The cough continued to get worse so as soon as we got home on Saturday Judd took her to the Urgent Care Clinic in town. Unfortunately, it had closed 30 minutes before they arrived. Bailey ended up doing better that night and seemed fine all day Sunday. When she went to bed that night, she coughed and coughed and coughed. Poor baby. Judd said that if she wasn't better Monday morning, he'd take her to the pediatrician. Well, she woke up with a fever so there was no question about a visit to the doctor. She ended up having strep and started antibiotics.

Meanwhile, Campbell developed a fever on Monday while at school so he was sent home early. I had planned on taking Tuesday off to stay home with Bailey because she would not have been fever free or on antibiotics for 24 hours. Instead, I stayed home with both of them and took Campbell to the doctor to find out that he, too, had strep. He also started a round of amoxicillin. Neither one of them were 100% on Wednesday so Judd stayed home with them again. By Thursday, they were finally able to go back to school!

All was well until Campbell broke out in hives on Saturday evening! We suspected it was a reaction to the amoxicillin and called our pediatrician (you know, the one whose office phone goes directly to her cell - we love her!) She told us to give him Benadryl and an hour later go ahead and give him his evening dose of amoxicillin. The hives cleared up within 30 minutes! The next morning he was still doing fine so we gave him another dose of amoxicillin, per the doctor's instructions. When we picked him up from the nursery after church though, the hives had returned. After another call to Dr. K, we were instructed to give him Benadryl, stop the amoxicillin, and she called in a different antiobiotic for him. He began taking that on Sunday evening and had it again on Monday morning. All was good until Monday evening when he broke out in hives AGAIN! Without calling Dr. K again, we just gave him Benadryl and did not give him his antibiotic. We will call her in the morning to see what to do next. I wonder if this means he is allergic to all penicillins.

Update: We went back to the doctor on Tuesday because they wanted to test him for strep again and see if we still needed to be on antibiotics. The test was positive so the doctor put him on the only thing left for strep. She said she doesn't like to prescribe it because it can upset their stomachs. We have made sure Campbell has something on his tummy before taking the medicine and he has been fine. No upset stomach and no hives! The doctor isn't 100% convinced that he is allergic to the other two antibiotics because she said that strep itself can cause rashes/hives. She said she would give him amoxicillin again when the need arises and we'll see how he does with it.

Here are some pictures of the kids from their sick days:

They sure don't look sick, do they???