Who knew hives could be so LARGE????

Last night as we were getting the kids ready for bath, this is what we saw on Bryce:

Yes folks, those are HIVES. I have never seen them so large. He had the huge one on his side, some on his legs, some on his arms, down by his ankes....it was to bad. We had no idea what had happened. I called Gene in to look at them. Took pictures and sent them to my friend Marie, my friend Shelley and my mom. Called the babysitter to see if she had seen anything unusual...mom calls me back and says you need to get him to the doctor NOW. Of course, Audrey was already in the tub with wet hair, so we had to hurry and do a quicky bath. Didn't even bother to comb her hair before rushing out the door to Urgent Care. The one we usually go to was closed, so we went to one by my mom's house. Mom met us there and took Audrey to her house and got her hair detangled and kept her occupied for a few minutes. The doctor comes in, takes one look at my son's poor body and says "Well, that's a lovely case of hives. What has he eaten?" By this time they had spread to almost the whole backside of his legs, and were pretty much covering his entire body. He looked miserable. We're not entirely sure what it is that he's allergic too. He didn't eat anything strange at the sitter's house, and hadn't eaten dinner with us. We're thinking he ate something at school, but we're not sure. At the doctor's office, he got a shot of Benadryl, some prednisone, and a dose of Zyrtec. I'm glad Benadryl works fast because most of the hives went away pretty quickly. She said we really need to find out what it is that he's allergic too because next time it could be worse. Things looked better this morning, but we still had this on his arms:

There was still one more on his backside, and one down by his ankle. My poor bubbaboy!

Some Good News to Post!!

I finally have some good news to post. I don't think I've done that in a while. Audrey has been blinking a lot since her surgery, and since I'm terrified of her eyes flaring and us not catching it, she had an eye doc appointment yesterday. He said that the excessive blinking is because she still has sutures in her eyes from the surgery. He also said that her eyes look great - no sign on inflammation! And since they have been quiet for a little while now, he also said we can cut back on the Remicade infusions to once every 8 weeks! When we were there on Saturday, her rheumy happened to be on call, so he stopped by to see us. He said that she looks great. I'm so hoping to hear the words "medicated remission" on Tuesday when we see him for her official appointment.

We had Bryce's parent-teacher conference last night. He's doing so well! His teacher's assistant says he is just progressing really well. There are a lot of areas that we still need to work on, but he's doing really well. Some of his areas that they tested on jumped a whole bunch, others just a bit, but for most areas there was improvement. Some of his test scores were actually above what they were aiming for! We were so excited. His teachers just love him, and so I feel really good about that. At least until his next temper tantrum.... :-)

Gene's work has finally picked up. Last week he actually had overtime, and so we figured that his hours would be cut this week. Much to our surprise, he's staying at full-time! Wahoo! Maybe this is the sign of things to come. I certainly hope so. Rumor has it they might be getting a bunch of vent patients, so maybe they'll finally make good on their promise to move him into a RT position. We don't think so, though - they've hired several additional RT's and bypassed him completely every time, so we're not real hopeful about that.

So finally some good news!

Me!

I went shopping over the weekend. I haven't been shopping for me in a long time. Part of it was that funk I was in over my weight loss. (By the way I was down 2 pounds this week. I think my new total is 112.6 pounds thrown away.) So we went to Old Navy. I have always wanted to shop there, because the clothes just seem so cool. I found things that fit, but unfortunately the pants hit at my widest area - my hips. I'm not comfortable with pants that low. I prefer them up higher. I know, I know, it's just me and I'm not in fashion. I don't care - I'm also modest and don't feel comfortable showing my underwear every time I bend over. So my mom and I went to Wallyworld. Much to my surprise, I got in a pair of size 12 pants! I was so excited. I don't ever remember being in a size 12. I found a really cool top that was on clearance as well. I made the mistake of letting my son choose the color- of course, he chose red. But I guess a red shirt and black pants look good together. And he was very definite about the color red - it couldn't be this cool teal or purple - it had to be red. Oh well. That's what I get for letting him choose.

So here is me in my new outfit.....

Audrey is finally getting over croup. She's starting to sound better, but she still has snot attacks and the croupy productive cough. We have her Remicaid infusion on Saturday, so another fun day up at PCMC.