Alexander's Web Page

Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

Before I tell you about our Thanksgiving, I just want to share some pictures from when we went to Alex’s Papa’s house a few weeks ago.  He lives out in the country, and Alex had a blast running around in the fields, picking up sticks, riding on the tractor, and watching his daddy chop down trees.

This last picture is my favorite.  Alex and I were walking across the field, when he turned around, sat down, and said, “Picture!”  He wanted me to take his picture.  This is the result.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year.  Alex’s Mimi hosted at her house, and he had a ton of fun playing with Mimi, Papa, Meemaw, Gamma, and Dee-paw (as he calls everyone).  We watched the parade, ate a feast, watched some football, and played in the yard.  Overall it was a great success!  We even had name tags for our seats that Alex made.  We traced his hands, let him color them in turkey colors, and then I cut them out and glued on beaks and wattles.  They weren’t perfect, but I think people liked them.  The only problem is that I didn’t take enough pictures.  I always have the best intentions, but things don’t always work out like I would like them to.

We were lucky that Alex was healthy enough to attend the Thanksgiving celebration.  He had been sick for about two weeks prior to it.  I picked him up sick from school the Wednesday two weeks before Thanksgiving.  He had a low fever.  James stayed home with him on Thursday, and he seemed okay in the morning, but by the time I got home from work his fever was over 103.  We took Alex to Care Now, and there his fever was 105.  They diagnosed him with strep, brought his fever down, and sent him home.  I stayed home with him on Friday, started him on Amoxicillin, and he seemed to get better.

Over the weekend he developed a horrible diaper rash that I learned was probably due to the antibiotic.  No one at Care Now warned me about that, however.  We tried all sorts of things for the rash over the next week, but by the Friday before Thanksgiving week his bottom was so sore that he screamed every time he pooped.  I got an oral medication from his doctor on Friday to help with the rash, but she didn’t want to see him.  On Sunday, he finished up his amoxicillin, but developed this spotty rash on his legs.  Since I had the next week off, I decided to wait and call his doctor on Monday rather than taking him back to Care Now.

On Monday, the rash was much worse and had spread to his stomach and back.  I called his doctor and tried to get him in, but the nurse told me it was probably a reaction to the Amoxicillin and to start him on Benadryl.   This didn’t make sense to me since Alex had been on the Amoxicillin for 10 days and had just finished it, but I decided to just try the Bendryl.  By Tuesday morning, the rash was much worse, had spread to his arms, face, and head, and was starting to itch.

These pictures were taken on Tuesday morning, but don’t do justice to how bad Alex looked.  The rash eventually covered about 70% of his body.

I called his doctor again, but they just told me to continue the Benadryl.   There were no words of comfort, no explanation, no guesses as to how long this would last, or when I should expect to see an improvement.  When I politely asked the nurse if I could please bring Alex in to be seen, she told me if I was really that worried to just take him to the E.R. since they didn’t have any appointments, and then she hung up on me.

Now I realize that first-time mothers tend to be over-protective and maybe a little needy, but all I really needed was some reassurance about what was going on and maybe some more information.  I was very upset.  It is true that his rash greatly improved over the next few days and was almost invisible by Thanksgiving, but I am still upset with the pediatrician’s office.  I am thinking about changing doctors.  What do you think?