There are some things that throw me for a loop and one of those things are skin reactions. They seem so pressing because they are so visible and can look much more aggressive than they really are.

Just after lunch Khéna came up to me and said that he had red spots on his leg, I looked down and his whole leg from the knee down was swollen, warm to the touch and basically looked like on big hive. On his other leg there were spots and on his back there were a few also.

Of course, I took out my camera…

Leg that had one big hive…  swollen and warm… 

Smaller hives on his back

I then called Annie. (check out her amazing blog if you don’t know her!) Annie and I have been close, and would even say best friends, for 6 years now. We started to talk when we were both pregnant and preparing for an unassisted birth. She is the perfect type of friend to talk to when things are happening because we are on the same wave length, she won’t panic and won’t send me into a panic and she is the perfect person to brainstorm with and get ideas. Oatmeal bath? Tea with herbs that might help? what could it be from?

As I was talking to her I was watching Khéna and the hives kept spreading and he has a large welt starting on his face… I decided that Benadryl would best to stop the reaction. Of course, the unopened bottle Benadryl that I had on hand expired nearly 3 years ago.

I left the older boys at home, went to the pharmacy with the two younger ones and got a new bottle and gave the first dose to Khéna before even heading home. 3o min later the slightest signs and bit of residual itchiness were all that remained.

I still don’t know what caused them and I am not sure if I will figure that out soon but it did teach me something… coughs, fevers (except in Mina), throwing up, falling down (except for Mina jumping from the bunk bed… oh I forgot to talk about that!) are things that don’t really phase me… but when big blotches start appearing on the skin I go into a sort of panicky mode.

edit to add… the hives came back later in the evening just before bed and they are all over his body (leg, torso, arms) except for the leg that they were initially on…  we’ll see what tomorrow brings…

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, Colin was feeling run down on Halloween and was not his usual self. He was better on Thursday but was still laying down in front of the TV most of the day. Yesterday he was again tired and then started to complain about a stomach ache. When Simon got home, Colin mentioned that he had a stomach ache and Simon got all worried which in turn made things much worse. There are times that I feel like I may be a bit cold, but I know Colin. He is so sensitive, that if we slightly overreact then he will spiral and he gets scared and of course that makes the pain worse and he gets worse.

I calmed him down and he settled on the couch and had supper. He then had a bath and when he got out of the bath the cramps came back again and he was doubled over in pain. I went into the bathroom with him and talked to him and he just started to talk about all of his fears. What if it was his Kidneys? (like Wilhemlina last year and my father this year) what if it was his liver? (like my step-dad who died when Colin was 3 months old) or his stomach (my grandmother had stomach cancer recently) and what if… what if…

The more he talked the more he scared himself and he soon started hyperventilating and was in even more pain. He asked if he had to go to the hospital. (knife insert heart here)

I told him that he would be OK and that he just needed to relax and breathe and calm down and just explained that the more he panicked, the more he would hurt. He asked me how I knew that he would be OK… and all that I could think of saying is that a mom knows. I explained to his that last year, when Wilhelmina was sick I just knew that there was something wrong even though the hospital and doctors weren’t finding anything. I just knew. And though it was so hard to see him like that last night, I also just knew that he would be OK.  I brought him down stairs  to his bed and talked to him and reassured him and he quickly fell asleep.

I went in the sewing room and before long I heard him wake up, again in pain and again breathing fast and getting stressed out. After about 20 min, I was able to calm him down and then help him fall asleep again and I went to the computer to do a search for maybe an idea of what it could be. Big Mistake! I am not one to worry easily and I am not a hypochondriac but looking up something on Google will make anyone start to doubt themselves and fear the worse. Google is not a way to get simple advice or reassurance. I started to panic a bit even though I still knew deep down that there was nothing wrong, but my quick search had completely put me on edge.

I posted a quick post on my Facebook fan page and had a few comments and luckily the post was seen by our friend Jody (where we had the Halloween party last week) She quickly said that it was the same thing that sent them to the hospital with their daughter in the last week and that her son, Colin’s best friend, was going through nearly the same symptoms.

After talking with her  a bit and comparing stories, I felt better. He was not alone and they were experiencing similar things on the same days when they had seen each other 6 days before. I went to see Colin and he was no longer clinging his stomach and sleeping restlessly, but was on his back, totally calm and sleeping peacefully. I breathed a sigh of relief and went down to bed myself not long after.

Today, all is well and he hasn’t even complained once and is his normal jumpy self all full of energy.

Do you go to Google when something is wrong? Have you ever felt more panic because of a simple google search?