ALLERGIC

Yannick's chart at the Dr.'s office now sports a bright red sticker that says ALLERGIC TO AMOXICILLIN.  Poor baby.  He has had a rough rough winter, being sick A LOT.  So much so that they did some blood work to ensure there was nothing odd going on with his immune system.  There is not.  The reason seems to be "he has two older brothers who bring home everything".  This seems to be true.  He's had pink eye (thanks Z who brought it home from Kindergarten but did not get it himself), numerous colds, fevers galore, and now an ear infection.  To treat the ear infection, a very common antibiotic, Amoxicillin.  It is widely used because it is RARE for anyone to be allergic to it.  Our son is.  MAYBE.  That's the drama.  His Dr. says that he is the 5th case of Amoxicillin allergy in 2 weeks, when normally he gets maybe ONE case per YEAR.  He suspects that Evanston has gotten a bad batch.  Yannick will be , unnamed, part of a report he has to send to the CDC.  Doubt we will ever hear of a resolution.  But to be on the safe side, our little Nick is considered ALLERGIC (in angry red letters) from this point forward.  The Dr. said, unless he accidentally gets it sometime and has no reaction we should forever consider him ALLERGIC.

Why the all caps??  Because of this:

Here's the worse part...it kept getting worse and worse until his whole body was one purplish/red mass, face swollen and red. He did not seem to mind at first, but by the end, he was miserable.  Sadly, he got more meds, some steroids to put him back to normal.

The odd thing was that it came on pretty slowly then just went nuts.  I saw a few bumps while we were at the zoo on Monday, and my first thought was "did he get some strange allergy or condition from one of the animals"?  Over night there were a few more bumps, then BAM, went nuts.

Funny story about the steroids.  I was not able to pick up the prescription until the evening, when we were on our way to Awana for the big Grand Prix race.  So we gave him the meds once we got settled there, around 7pm.  Then our friend Stephanie, a nurse, casually mentioned that steroids keep them awake. Oh no.  By the time we got home, he was wired.  Art and I wanted to wind down and watch a little tv, so we let Yannick just play downstairs with us.  By 10:30, he was showing no signs of sleepiness (his usual bedtime is 7-7:30!!!), but WE were tired so we thought we would just put him down and hope for the best.  Praise the Lord that he went quietly to bed.  Did not sleep for awhile, but did not complain either.  Note to self and others, give steroid doses in the MORNING!