Maybe a bug got in his shirt...or not.

**PREFACE: Please be advised that this post contains photos of a yucky, awful toddler rash. If you don't want to see those kinds of photos, don't scroll down!! Also, for the record, these photos do not even begin to show how bad this actually looked...amplify the redness by a thousand and make the dots so numerous that they connect to each other...then you might get an idea of what we were looking at. The first few pics were taken the morning after things started, the middle pic is from the ER, and the last pictures are from the day after we got the good meds. Picture number one is just here to up the general cuteness factor of this otherwise yuck-o post.**

**ACTUAL POST

You'd never know it by looking at this guy, but we've had a scary couple of days.
The scariness started on Saturday night while I was giving Henry his bath. It was there that I noticed he had some 'bumps' on his back. They looked like mosquito bites...sort of. Upon closer examination, I realized that he had numerous little red bumps on his back and sides. I started to worry that he was coming down with the chicken pox or that a bug got caught up in his shirt while he was outside all evening. I counted the spots - 30.
I called my mom to come check it out. By the time she arrived a few minutes later, he had 60++ bumps...and more were growing! She thought it looked like chicken pox, too, but she said we wouldn't be able to know for sure until the next day. Chicken pox are recognizeable by the life cycle of the pox...and it's almost impossible to know if you have pox on Day 1. Our other thought was that this was some sort of allergic reaction, but neither of us really believed it was that since little man has never been allergic to anything AND nothing new had been introduced to his diet or environment (that we knew of). Plus, the bumps didn't look like hives or like any rash that either of us had ever seen.
After he went to bed, I spent HOURS fretting over the possibility that Henry had chicken pox, that the baby had already been exposed, that we were going to be dealing with itchy, scabby, crying babies all week, etc. etc.

The next morning when I heard Henry wake up, I raced upstairs to see what the bumps did in the night. When I got there, I almost couldn't believe my eyes. It was bad, y'all. Real bad. These things were angry and red and all-over his little body. I called my mom to come look again. We decided, based on the looks of things, that this was definitely not chicken pox. They were huge (some bigger than quarters), really red, all over his midsection and spreading onto his extremities. I called the pediatrician for advice.

The desk nurse was super-sweet, and she agreed with me that it didn't sound like chicken pox. It sounded like an allergic reaction to her, even though these still didn't exactly look like hives either...so, we were given the rec to dose up on Benadryl and call back with any changes.

Throughout the day, I watched the bumps closely. They were all getting enormous, very red, and he was getting itchier and itchier. Now, they looked like hives. The Benadryl really wasn't doing anything to stop the reaction. When I say that, understand that I didn't expect the hives to go away...I just thought he would get some relief from the red itchiness. None whatsoever.

That evening, I put him into a cool bath to try to help him with the itchies. This is when things started to get really interesting. As he stepped out of his pants, I immediately saw that his knees looked red and puffy. I thought it was strange, but I also assumed it was just my imagination...or that he had hives on his knees. Within a few minutes, the knees looked more swollen. A few minutes later, he told me his knees hurt and asked to get out of the bathtub to see his daddy. I got him out and put a towel around him...he started crying...calling out to Jared. He tried to walk out of the bathroom, and it was obvious that he was struggling to stay standing. A sort of panic came over me when I saw it. He hobbled into the living room, and as soon as he saw Jared, he fell to the floor and started crying to be held by his dad. When I told him to "walk to daddy," he tried, but fell over on the floor crying again.

Needless to say, a short time later, we were making our way to Texas Children's ER. Something about your baby being unable to walk just takes care of any indecision one might have regarding heading in to the doc.

First thing I have to say...I will never take my children ANYWHERE but Texas Children's for any future medical issues that require hospital involvement. I had heard a few of my friends say this before, but I had never experienced the care there firsthand. Now that I have, I'm a lifetime member of the fan club...fo' sho'. Almost immediately upon seeing him, the doctor was able to diagnose him. He definitely had hives...of unknown origin...and they have a fancy long name which I will not be sharing here. Suffice it to say, Henry got a very special brand of hives, which is most of the time caused by the body responding to a virus (not an allergen)...sort of like how some people will get a cold sore after they are sick or when their immune system is run down. That's what these hives are. The doctor said that you can't know for sure that these are what they are without a biopsy (which we did not see any need to have at this point), but a telltale marker of this kind of hives is that, as they start to go away, they'll leave behind what appears to be bruises. At the ER, we got a huge dose of Benadryl and were given a prescription for a steroid to take the swelling down. We filled the prescription on the way home, and we walked back in our door around 2 a.m. Monday morning. Henry got his first dose of steroid that night, James ate a big middle-of-the-night snack, and we were all fast asleep by 3. Great way to start off the week, right?!?

When he woke up, it was apparent that the H-man was on the mend. His knee swelling had gone down, he was walking fine, and he looked like he had been shot by 400 paintballs (if you're familiar with the appearance of paintball bruises, you can imagine). I was sooo relieved that the ER doc told me to expect the bruising, because seriously, if she hadn't, I'd have been right back to the hospital upon seeing that mess. With each dose of steroid, he gets better and better. His mid-section still looks extremely bruised up...but we should expect that to linger for several more days or even a few weeks. This morning, we followed up with his regular pediatrician, and she confirmed our hospital diagnosis and told me not to worry too much. She suspects that this is an entirely viral situation in response to the cold that we all had last week. To be cautious, she wrote us an order for bloodword to be done after he finishes the steroid...this may give us more information regarding an allergy or the way his body is fighting this...or may tell us that he's perfectly fine and over it. All to be seen. So, that's been our week so far...what's goin' on with you??