Update on Madeline/ She is one big HIVE

[Guest guest]

Madeline woke up this morning with huge hives all over her body!!!

Some of

the worse hives I've ever seen, and I'm an allergy nurse. We can't

think

of anything that we've done differently to cause an allergic

reaction. My

husband called me at work, he took a vacation day today, freaking

out.

He'll probably never take another vacation day again!!! I felt so

sorry

for her she had huge blistery looking welps from her shoulders to

just

below her little elbows. They were glowing red and hot. If you put

any

pressure on them at all they would turn white. It looked as though

it was

painful for her to bend her little arms. While in the office waiting

for

the pediatrician to come in she developed two mesquito bite looking

places

on her legs that grew to softball size before the DR. even made it

into the

room. She walked around the room reading books, pointing at the

colors on

the walls, occasionally scratching at her arms and her knees, but

pretty

much oblivious to the severity of what was going on. My husband and

I sat

there looking at her, and we started to itch all over, I guess it was

empathy!!! The doctor just told us to continue benadryl q 6h. She

said

they were classic hives, and she was either having a reaction to the

pollen

in the air, something she ate, or a bug bite. She seemed more

concerned

about the junky sounding cough, her lungs are clear, but her cough is

more

frequent and now has a wet sound. She has never coughed much in her

life

so her father and I are just now getting a taste of what this is

like!!

(and we're not liking it a bit) She has the classic dark circles, a

runny

nose, itchy watery eyes, a wet cough and cry, and she spiked a fever

of 102

under the arm on Sat. Her respirations also increased from a normal

30

breaths per minute to 65-70 bpm. She was also making a grunting

noise and

having nasal flaring, which they teach you are all siqns of

respiratory

distress in nursing school. SOOO Saturday night, I'm freaking out,

calling

our cf doc, who was luckily on call. She said to moniter her vitals

and if

her respirations stayed high and she was afebrile she would need to

start

her on an antibiotic. So today she called because our pediatrician

had

contacted her after our apt., and she wants to start her on Bactrim

due to

her increased cough. She also wants us to do one more treatment a

day on

her. I have a question for you all though. Back in December of

2002,

Madeline was hospitalized for pseudomonas. We only knew she had

pseudomonas because of her routine swab at her cf clinic. This new

Dr. of

hers says she only does one swab a year, not matter what. Does this

sound

right to everyone. IF so, let's say Madeline's yearly swab was in

November

and she never had any symptoms, we would have let her grow psedo. in

her

lungs for 11 months before we treated her?? This just doesn't make

any

sense to me. Like now, she is having symptoms of something, which

she has

never had any symptoms before, I would think a swab would be

necessary!!

But what do I know, I'm just a nerotic mother!!!!!

-Mom to Madeline 1.5 wcf/one great big hive:(