We went to visit my parents at their land in Wisconsin the weekend before Memorial Day. We were on a walk in the woods, and stopped to rest. A sat on a log, and shortly thereafter complained that her leg hurt. She was having trouble walking, and we put her back in the pack to walk back to camp. Grandpa J inspected her leg, and didn't see anything that needed a bandaid, and left it at that. When I was helping her put on jammies that night, I noticed a light pink spot about the size of a half dollar, and put some hydrocortisone on it. She was totally normal following the incident in the woods, until we arrived at home on Sunday evening. She started complaining about how much her left leg hurt, and when we looked at it then, it was red, hot, and swelling at the knee and ankle. We got an appointment set up for the next day at our clinic, gave her some Motrin, and she slept fine all night. When she came into my bedroom the next morning, she was on fire. I couldn't wait for the afternoon appointment, so I took her to the ER at Children's, while Mike stayed home with B. By the time the doctor saw her, half her leg was an angry red. The doc drew an outline around the cellulitis so we could track its progress. She was immediately admitted for IV antibiotics. She had a really high fever through the night, and she got pretty sick of nurses taking her blood pressure and temperature. Luckily her infection responded well to Ancef, her fever came down somewhat and was manageable with Motrin and Tylenol, and we were sent home around noon on Tuesday, with a 9 day course of oral antibiotics. We have no idea what bit her, but I know that I never want to see her meet up with that particular insect again! We are going to an allergist with a special interest in insect bite allergies, to see what kind of precautions we need to take (as far as allergy testing, a lifetime supply of Benadryl, epi pen, etc.) It was so surreal to see our little girl in a hospital gown, in a gigantic hospital bed, with her arm taped to a board holding her IV in place. We're so glad to be home and playing, business as usual. And the good news is that we have easily fulfilled our health insurance deductible for 2007!
We are eagerly awaiting the births of two new babies- hopefully SOON, or we won't know what to do with ornery, really pregnant, really grumpy Hope and Danielle (not saying you guys are crabby- just that you might be if some dilation doesn't happen pretty quickly.)
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Flinn meets that bug a lot--it's a mosquito for her. Swells up, gets hot and hard, all that fun stuff. She has been to an allergist, etc., too.
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