Olivia's Big Reaction

So the last few weeks in our house have been, well, eventful to say the least.

Valentine's Day start off fairly normal in our house. Getting the kids up ready for school, hugs and kisses and telling them I am proud of them and love them so much. Then off to school and work everyone went. Both the girls were having parties in their classes but I was only going to make it to the one in Olivia's class. (1. because I was in charge of the party and 2. because when you get to 5th grade the Valentine's party is not a big deal and they mainly just want to sit and talk) Olivia's party started at 1:30 so I got to school early to pass out teacher gifts from the PTA. (I am head of the Hospitality Committee, which might I add I absolutely enjoy.) After the party we had to boogie across town to pick Izzy up from school. When we got home Olivia headed to her room for down time (this is 30 minutes to 1 hour everyday after school for them to unwind and do homework or read). I noticed she was very quite (which for Olivia is unusual). When I walked by her room she was laying in her bed with a book and looked very tired. I asked her what was wrong and she just she was tired. She asked if she could sleep and I said sure. 3 hours later she woke up with a fever of 101.4. So not good! Her fever continued like this the rest of the night and into Friday. So we headed to the doctor. Well I took both girls. Izzy had been coughing (hacking) for 4 or 5 days and wasn't getting better. The verdict on Izzy was she bronchitis and she was being put on breathing treatments 3 times a day for 5 days. And Olivia had a red throat (negative for strep) which was deemed viral. Their ped said if by Monday they weren't better call them back and they would call in an antibiotic. So our weekend consisted of doing not doing much. Saturday night we did go to Mamaw's church for the night of stars dinner since both girls seemed to be on the up swing. (pics in the next post) I decided to keep Olivia home from church because her fever had gone back up, 99.9.

This was her Sunday morning.

 







Sunday Olivia seemed to decline a little more. Her fever would bounce up and down. She was coughing and had a ton of congestion. So come Monday morning at 8 am I was on the phone with the doctors office. They called in Z-packs for both the girls. Thank goodness Monday was a holiday for the girls so they had an extra day to heal and rest. However, Monday took a downward spiral for Olivia. She was exhausted all day, her fever bounced around, her cough was getting worse and her eyes were just pitiful. We put her to bed early Monday night so her body would have lots of rest to heal. At 11:15 I headed to bed. I went in to check on Liv, feeling her forehead to make sure she didn't need any more Tylenol. Apparently it was enough to wake her a bit and the coughing started. She coughed for 15 minutes straight to the point of getting sick, throwing up, getting strangled and couldn't catch her breath. So at 11:30 she and I headed to Children's Hospital. I was nervous when we walked in and the waiting room was PACKED! I wanted to tell my baby don't breath (the last thing we needed was another germ of some sorts). After 30 minutes of triage, registration and wait we headed back to a room. We were literally in the room 15 minutes. This included vitals, talking to the nurse, talking to the doctor and getting a plan of action and out the door we went. The diagnosis was a severe sinus infection with a (left) ear infection. The doctor said the Z-pack she was on was for chest stuff more than sinus stuff so she prescribed Augmentin and Robotussin with codeine. (they gave her a dose of each before we left) So after some much needed sleep Olivia and I laid around most the day until time to pick up Izzy. Tuesday, Olivia just didn't seem to be getting any better.

Those eyes killed me. They are such sick eyes.

Her face was puffy and her little lips were so

chapped.

 



She really was sick and seemed to be getting worse. I wondered about flu but they wouldn't test her since her fever wasn't high enough and the long grown test on the strep was negative as well.  The cough and congestion seemed to be be getting worse as well. She asked to put her pjs back on when we got home and while we did that I noticed red splotches on her body.

These splotches started showing up all over her body. They would be there for 15 to 30 minutes and then go away but others would show up somewhere else. Notice above, you can see the ones on her shoulder but you can also see some on her neck and face. They have little bums in them and they itched.

Her poor little torso ended up really bad.

 

 

I sent these pics to my sister-in-law who is a nurse and asked if she thought these were an allergic reaction/hives. She called me back and said call the doctor now. See what they want you to do and give her Benadryl. (My sister-in-law is a phenomenal nurse! She is very cautious to tell you what something might be because she doesn't want to tell you wrong. But she knew what this was for sure.)  So I pumped her full of Benadryl and called the after hours number for our peds. Dr. Greg called us back and said we were doing the right thing and to watch her the rest of the night. If she wasn't better in the morning to call and come in and he would give her a shot of Rocephrine. But to stop the Augmentin and cough syrup. Keep in mind we are not sure which caused her to have the reaction but we aren't willing to find out the hard way either. So Wednesday morning, she wasn't any better so off to the doctor we went. Our appointment was for 9:15 and we went right back. Dr. Shannon came in checked her out and said her throat was bright red and her right ear was infected. She wanted her tested for strep (again), flu and mono. All of which came back negative, thank goodness. So she ordered the shot of Rocephrine and we had to wait 20 minutes since she had a reaction to another antibiotic. After, holding her down (which made me cry because Rocephrine shots are the mack daddy of antibiotic shots and they hurt really bad) for her shot the nurse set the timer for 20 minutes and said she would be back. Olivia was playing Fairy Boutique on my phone and I noticed her scratching the side of her face that was away from me. I turned her face toward me and OH MY WORD! I saw huge bums, HIVES! I immediately got the nurse who just about dropped her jaw. 5 minutes, 5 minutes people, that is all it took for my girl to react to this shot. They gave her a double dose of Benadryl and got an epi pen just in case. They checked her lungs and listened to her breathing to make sure she hadn't started wheezing. Thank goodness she didn't!  They watched her for the next 45 minutes and then allowed us to leave. They consensus was no more, Augmentin, cough syrup and Rocephrine. We were to stay on the Z-pack since she wasn't reacting to it and she is to be allergy test asap. So Wednesday night we gave her the dose of the Z-pack. She seemed a little better on Thursday. (keep in mind, even though she reacted to the Augmentin and Rocephrine she would still get the benefits of the med killing the germs) Thursday day was uneventful, we played, read,watched her favorite shows on Netflix and napped. Everything seemed normal. I went to our church exercise program and Travis kept the girls at home. He fed them and got all meds taken and they were all snuggled up on the couch about ready for bed. I noticed a reddish looking spot on Olivia's face. So I began to check her body and guess what I found. The start of ANOTHER reaction! I took pics and sent them to a friend of ours who is a nurse practitioner at our allergist office. (keep in mind this is 7:30 on a Thursday night) She texted me back to get the skinny on what was going on. Then she called me and we chatted about everything going on and she told me what to watch for and if a (more hives broke out or got worse), b (she began to vomit) or c (she began to run a fever) happened I needed to take her to the ER. I gave her Benadryl and got her in bed, her reaction seemed to calm down. Around 10, we heard Olivia coughing. That dreaded cough, the one where she was gonna be sick. I went in and sat with her and sure enough she got sick. I checked her little body and the splotches were still and and more had come up. The Benadryl was not doing the job this time. I called the after hours at our peds and they immediately called me back and said take her to the ER. So in the pouring rain, we headed to the ER for the 2 time in 4 days. Her eyes were blood shoot again, her splotches were coming and going, her face was flush and her lips were puffy. When we walked in it the waiting room was loaded. 65 chairs and 1 was empty. The same sweet little guy was working the desk that was there the other night. As soon as he saw her he said, "I know what your here for, baby your having an allergic reaction, aren't you?" Oh my really you can tell that my seeing my child's face!? We went straight into triage and then within 5 minutes we were back in a room. Her vitals were good (except she had developed a slight fever 99.9) but the signs of the reaction were still coming and going. They gave her more Benadryl and Zofran (to calm the vomiting). They watched her for 30 minutes then let her have a Popsicle and some Powerade.  30 minutes later (after keeping that down) they gave her Orapred (steroid) and Zantac (which calms skin rashes caused by a reaction, who knew Zantac had multiple uses). The verdict is she had an allergic reaction to the Z-pack as well. (which we are now thinking that on Monday when she looked so bad, in the top pic, she had splotches on her face that she had the start of a reaction then). So as of now she can not take any drug that is in 3 of the major antibiotic families. (Cephalosporin which contains Omnicef which has always been our go to drug for ear infections, Penicillins which contains Augmentin and Macrolide/Mycin which contains Azithromycin which she has taken for different things)

 

Everything yesterday and today seems to be calm. Her sinus infection has finally let up and is almost gone. (which it should after 4 antibiotics and a steroid) She goes for allergy testing March 4 which will hopefully give us the answers we need to keep her safe on antibiotics. They have warned us that each reaction gets worse. So if she test positive on the allergy test she will need to have a medical id bracelet showing her allergies. 

 

Never dull here! Please pray my girls continue to get better. Olivia has been out of school since Feb. 14th so she will have a lot of catching up to do. Please pray her allergy test go well as we know she has definite allergies to some drugs. (however they will do a full work up on her, 100 plus picks) Please pray for rest as the last few weeks have taken a toll on my and Travis's health. We are fighting off colds and scratchy throats.