Doctor, doctor give me the news

Warning: This is a long one.

Aside from a fantastic Thanksgiving, the rest of the last week has been pretty horrendous. Last Tuesday, as I was getting ready for work, Tysen came in and said "I itch". I was like "what do you mean you itch". It's a weird complaint, right? He said is back itched and I pulled up his shirt, saw nothing, and told him to get his backpack ready for school. I dropped him off at school, then Audrey at the babysitter's, and headed off to work.

About 15 minutes after I walked into work my phone rang. Sure enough, it was the school nurse telling me to come pick up Tysen because he had hives. HIVES!!! Now, here I am thinking, oh great, they must think I'm the mother of the year for sending my kid to school with hives. So I leave work and go to the school (where I had just been 30 minutes earlier dropping him off).

Now, I had never seen hives before. I imagined some small, possibly 1/4 to 1/2 inch diameter reddish bumps on the skin. Not so much. They were HUGE!!! Lesson #1: hives are irregular in shape and can vary in size as well. So it's true what they say, you do learn something new every day. He had a reasonably sized hive on his back and the nurse said it was probably an allergic reaction and to give him Benadryl and call the doctor.

I called the doctor and scheduled an appointment for an hour later. I was at Basha's getting gas and needed to pick up a few things to Thanksgiving anyway, so I decided to run in and get those items rather than go home for a few minutes before heading to the doctor. By the time we got out of the store, his hives were completely gone. Whaaa? So I called the doctor's office back and cancelled the appointment since they were gone. I ran some errands, picked up some Benadryl, and finally made it home.

I gave him the medicine and laid down on the sofa while he watched cartoons. Of course, I fell asleep. He woke me up a while later and said his back itched again. I lifted up his shirt and there were hives EVERYWHERE!!! Lesson #2: hives can, and do, come and go without warning. I took a couple of pictures with my phone this time in case I decided to take him to the doctor later so I would have some evidence if they went away again. Like I said, this pic was taken with my phone so it's not the best photo in the world. Gross, right?

Various parts of his body looked like that off and on from Tuesday until Friday. We did everything we could to eliminate his itching. Lesson #3: a lukewarm bath with 1/2 cup cornstarch and 1/2 cup backing soda will help itchy skin - Aveeno also makes an oatmeal bath treatment which is helpful - milk of magnesia (aka Mylanta) can be rubbed on to cool the skin and alleviate itchiness and Calamine lotion is worth it's weight in gold. Lesson #4: 2 days before Thanksgiving Wal-Mart will be out of cornstarch because of prepared gravy-makers.

We did a decent job of keeping the itching at bay and pumped his poor system full of Benadryl every 4 hours. I did the Black Friday shopping and called from Kohl's as soon as the doctor's office opened to schedule an appointment. Toby took him to the doctor and he basically told us what we already knew, that he probably had an allergic reaction to a cough medicine we had given him the weekend before and it would run it's course, probably in a matter of 5-7 days, but could possibly last up to 4 weeks.

FOUR WEEKS?!?!?!? I can't take 4 weeks of this. The doctor gave Toby samples of the allergy medication Allegra to use instead of Benadryl to see if that would be more effective. And it really was more effective at keeping the hives away. HOWEVER, every time Tysen took the Allegra, he would start throwing up a few hours later (which is always awesome at 2 in the morning and so much fun when he doesn't make it to the toilet). Lesson #5: you can be allergic to an allergy medication. Seems ironic, doesn't it.

The doctor said we could also use Claritin or Zyrtec if we ran out of the Allegra samples so Toby went and picked up some of both today (the ox, was in the mire, OK? I know it's Sunday and we shouldn't be buying things). We gave him the Zyrtec (because it was the more expensive, which should mean it's a better product, right?) and, knock on wood, he's been fine ever since. No hives, no vomiting, no stomach aches, no itching. And hopefully I'm done learning lessons on this one. Halle-freaking-lujia!!!