Two weeks ago, I took her in again because she had a cough that had been going on for about 3 weeks. The doctor said it was probably viral, but since she was having such a hard time kicking it, he gave her a prescription for Cefdinir. Cefdinir is another common antibiotic. She started the medicine on a Friday evening. A week later, she woke up from her nap with a rash around her throat. Since she had fallen asleep with a necklace on, I didn't think much of it at the time, (except to scold her about wearing necklaces while she slept) but after I took the necklace off, the rash actually got worse, not better, I knew we were in trouble.
Friday night I gave her some Benadryl in the hopes of keeping any nasty reactions from happening. By Saturday afternoon, she wouldn't walk again. She said her knees hurt. I took her to the After Hours Clinic. The doctor agreed that it must be a reaction to the medication but didn't want to put her on a steroid to bring down the inflammation in her joints unless we had to, since the steroid would affect her ability to fight any new infections she might get. Her rash was now all up and down her body.
Saturday night was terrible. Keldrie woke up around 3 and could not get back to sleep. We put on a movie in our room and she watched while I held her and slept. Russell had already been up twice during the night at this point. Keldrie never did go back to sleep, and when the movie was over, Matt took her downstairs to eat some breakfast and snuggle some more. I slept for a few more hours.
When I got up on Sunday morning, it was to let Matt come back to bed. I asked him all about when she had had what medicines and what had she eaten. Turned out, she wouldn't eat anything. I headed downstairs and this is more or less what greeted me:
This picture was actually taken about 2 hours later, once I had gotten her to eat some powdered donuts (which is why her lips are white) and she quickly fell asleep after that. She kept saying her hands were "hard" because they were too swollen to open and close properly. The poor thing couldn't even hold a cup and had to ask us every time she wanted something to drink. Well, once I saw that she was swollen, I immediately called the on-call doctor. He called in a prescription for the steroid and said that if she started to have trouble breathing, to take her the the ER. Luckily, we never had to follow through on that advice.
Since it was Sunday, I had to go to Relief Society and give my lesson, although to tell you the truth, I don't think it went that well. My thoughts were very distracted and anytime I thought about my poor baby, I would start to cry. My mom had watched Russell for me while I took Kel to the doctor and she had also had the foresight to go to the grocery store and stock up on everything we might need since Kel would be in no condition to go anywhere anytime soon. So we had everything we needed to get though it, at least physically. My dad had also given us some oatmeal bath which was the only time she ever truly forgot about how miserable she was.
That night, she again ended up in our bed, but around 4 in the morning she excitedly woke me up to tell me that her hands weren't "hard" anymore. And sure enough, most of the swelling was gone. The rash was just as bad the next day, but she did feel better.
Around Wednesday the itching became atrocious. The medicine seemed to help, but not enough to get rid of the itch for longer than an hour or two. She has slowly returned back to her usual self. The rash still comes and goes, sometimes her body looks completely clear and then two hours later she will have spots on her arms and face again. Last night she scratched her legs hard enough they started to bleed in three separate spots.
All in all, she is still healing, but so much better! We feel blessed that we can take her to the doctor and give her the needed medicine to help her feel better. She is our special girl, that is for sure!
