A New Allergy

Today, I was very excited - we had planned on spending the day at Dreher Island with my family. My sister and her family were camping there and we were going to drive my Aunt and meet them there where my parents were also going to join in the fun. As an added bonus, I was even going to get to see a really good friend of mine. Well, so much for our fun. Jackson can't catch a break. For reasons I don't care to go into, he has had his fair share of doctor visits over the past couple of weeks. He came down with some whelps yesterday afternoon. I thought maybe some chiggers had gotten a hold of him when he was outside at daycare. I gave him some benadryl before bedtime and loaded him down with some Desitin expecting things would be better in the morning. Boy, was I ever wrong. The whelps were worse and had spread all over the place by this morning. I gave him a bath and that just seemed to bring them out even more. Thank goodness for our Pediatrician having weekend hours. We took him this morning and it turns out he is allergic to penicillin. He has been on amoxacillin for 9 days now. And... this is the second time he has been on it. The first time was back in February when he had bronchitis. I didn't think that a reaction to the medicine was even a possibility, but as I learned today, that allergy can come at any time regardless of whether or not you have had it before and had no problems. We were instructed to keep him on benadryl every four hours to help with the discomfort and just ride it out. The Doctor said it could take up to 10 days to clear up. UGH! For now, Jackson looks like he has come down with the chicken pox or something. I swear I think he must be allergic to us trying to make plans to go anywhere. It seems whenever we think we are going some where, he comes down with something. He must be allergic to Columbia because its Gamecock country. Who can blame him for that? Seriously though, there are too many family members and friends in Columbia for us to continue having this problem. Thankfully, he has been relatively good as he always is. Here are a few pictures that I took this evening... funny, he doesn't look too affected by it all. I just hope he sleeps well tonight! Benadryl does not have the sleepy effect on him (just like Mommy). Notice one of these pictures actually shows his teeth!