Seth's first allergic reaction

Is it just us?  Or does anyone else have the luck that their children always get sick on the weekend when their doctor's office is closed.  So you are forced to take them to the Emergency Room or Urgent Care where the visit costs three times as much?

One Friday afternoon, after just arriving home from picking Seth up from daycare, I noticed that Seth had all these little red spots on his hands.  They had played in the water that afternoon at the daycare so I thought he might have just been bit by mosquitos but noticed that he also had them all over his legs as well.  I realized they were hives but couldn't pin point what was causing them.

By Saturday afternoon, Seth was covered from head to toe in the hives.  We took him to the KidsCare where they "guessed" that it was probably an allergic reaction to the amoxicillin he had been taking for the last week for an ear infection.  Nothing could be done but continue to give him Benadryl and wait.  I love paying $250 for that kind of a visit.

At the KidsCare...my cute little leper

By Sunday, Seth was still covered in hives and now had a continual fever of 102.  The doctor told us that if his hives turned purple we needed to rush him to the ER.  Someone suggested we give Seth a bath (FYI- not a good idea when a child has hives) so we started one on Sunday morning and he freaked out and his hives turned purple and he was shaking so hard that his limbs were trembling. I was crying my eyes out while we jumped in the car and headed for the hospital.  But before we went inside I noticed that his hives weren't purple anymore and he had stopped trembling.  So we decided to take him home again.

Seth's feet were so swollen from the hives that he couldn't walk.  For 5 days, all he wanted to do was cuddle in our arms.

We had several rough nights as Seth battled this mysterious fever and a quick visit to his pediatrician on Monday gave no answers other than to document the possible allergy to amoxicillin and to continue giving Benadryl and Tylenol for the hives and fever.

Seth ended up in our beds every single night.  Our queen bed just isn't big enough for us all anymore! 

The poor guy was miserable for about 6 days.  But woke up hive-free and fever-free on the 7th day...which happened to be his birthday. 

I took this picture one day when Seth was in a particularly miserable mood.  He didn't want to have clothes on because they bothered his hives and he didn't want to walk because of his swollen feet so he just laid on the stairs.  He was so unhappy.