Our Week of "Just" Allergies

Whew...what a week it's been. Aaron only made it to school for one and a half out of five days this week. And he was TECHNICALLY not sick. Now, take one look at this little boys and tell me what your first thought would be...

My first thought would be that he got socked in the eye.

The word "allergies" has an entire new meaning to us after this past week.

A week ago Wednesday, Aaron came home from school and Steve and I noticed some purple circles under his eyes. We just kept going on as normal. Meanwhile, Noah had been sniffling and had a scratchy throat for over a month. So not thinking much of Aaron's eyes, I took NOAH in to the doctor Thursday morning. There is a long and drawn out story related to that but it basically came across as "It's JUST allergies" and we were sent on our way.

By Friday after school, Noah was not sniffling so much so I thought, "no big deal, it's just allergies" But then I took one look at Aaron and was dumbfounded.

His eyes were not only purple, but also a little swollen.

So, I put him into bed and also gave him some benadryl, which I thought would help him sleep.

Well....as I found out almost every hour on the hours that night...benadryl apparently keeps BOTH of my children up at night. So, no more benadryl as an option. That's for sure!

Saturday morning, despite the lack of sleep, his eyes were looking a little better. We were thinking, okay maybe we won't need to take him in to the doctor on Monday after all.

And we went on with life. Steve took the boys out  to make a Mother's day craft and we continued with our plans to spend our day with the in-laws do Mother's Day. I worried quite a bit about Aaron playing outside since we still hadn't figured out what exactly the kid was allergic to, but their cousins were there and the four of them were having so much fun playing on the logs that I decided to just go with it.

Now, I don't know if it was because he was outside playing, or because something just wasn't right, but Monday morning I was awakened by a scream...

"MOM, I CAN'T OPEN MY EYE!!!!!"

And THIS is what I found

Yuck!!








After a little clean-up work, it still didn't look much better and it was really odd that it was only in
one eye, rather than both as it had been previously. By the time we got to the doctor, it was looking better and the doctor (actually the PA) looked at him and prescribed an eye drop. When I asked her about allergy testing too, she said no (which is surprising and I will be following up on it next week)

Tuesday Aaron was feeling better and he went off to school.

Wednesday morning his eye looked a little pink but not bad and I sent them off to school again. A half hour after school started, the phone rang and I saw the school come up on caller ID. Sure enough, Aaron was complaining about how much his eye hurt and itched and he needed to come home. By the time I got to school, they were back to being pretty red and swollen again and he spent the day in my work office in the dark watching movies. He thought it was a party.

So after yet ANOTHER call to the PA and doctor (I was hoping to talk to the doctor this time) a steroid was finally prescribed. Now, I was thinking of all the joys of this overly dramatic child's behavior when prednisone was added, but at this point it kind of seemed like he was never going to get well so we'd do whatever it takes.

So we went to fill the prescription. I did call the school and decided to keep him home on Thursday, not knowing how he would act on the new meds. It was probably a good call considering the kid has been bouncing off the wall ever since.

But the eye is looking good.

For now. And although he got several  out of character "behavior tallies" today (presumably because of these meds), he was pretty much back to normal.

So that was our week. I do think I need to pursue allergy testing though. I always thought of "allergies" as sniffles and sneezes, but this was out of control and the poor boy was miserable. I am really hoping we can find out what this was and avoid another breakout of this type. I will never think of allergies with the word "just" in front of them again.

So I think it will be a much better weekend, other than all of the homework we need to do to make up for all the missed school this week. Luckily, with only 13 days of school left, the work isn't too pressing at this point.

And I guess we'll find out on Monday after this new medicine is complete if there will be a sequel to this saga.

Gotta say...I hope not.

Have a great weekend.