Poor, poor Emeline. Yesterday she woke up crying and upset from her nap, but it was about time for her to wake up so I didn't think much about it. Later on that evening Timothy and noticed that her right hand was about 3 times its normal size and her pinkie finger was a very unhealthy shade of pink.
We gave her benadryl and put her to bed, but at midnight when we checked on her, her hand was 4 times its normal size, and we were a little more worried since the benadryl hadn't done anything that we could see.
At that point, I called my friend Polly who is a pediatrician (okay, she's whatever it is when you get a masters degree in pediatrics after getting a nursing degree--I can never remember--and I think of her as my kids pediatrician despite her living in CA) and fortunately she was on call and awake. She told me to keep her home and give her more benadryl and check on her during the night and then see how things were in the morning.
She saved me a trip to the ER, for which I am grateful because when I checked on Emeline during the night her hand didn't look any different. But this morning when she woke up, her hand was all mottled and the swelling hadn't gone down, and her pinkie had turned from light pink to a really dark pink and had spread around to her palm and her palm was getting all hard and weird-feeling. Definitely time for a doctor.
The doctor showed me the "fang" marks where a spider bit her three times. Sad. And now it is infected. Doubly sad. She should be fine--we just have to watch her close to make sure the infection doesn't spread to her arm, and keep her on the antibiotics.
I've decided it is very disturbing to see a child's body part swell in a grotesque manner. Of course, I learned that lesson the first time when my little brother Wyatt got into poison oak and his face swelled to unrecognizable proportions. Really, I can barely stand to look at the pictures now, and at the time, I avoided looking at him at all. I really need to find those pics and post them. Next time I'm at Mom's . . ..
4 comments:
Oh--that sounds AWFUL!!!! (I accidentally almost wrote awesome, but that is definitely NOT what it was.) That is sooo terrible and sickening and sad and awful!!
I don't know if I wouldn't have taken her in, if it had been Ethne...can't say, but I'm glad she should be okay now.
We asked mom if Emeline was doing just the same things as Ethne and Elena and she said yeah, and was telling us just how fun she is to play with, because she loves being tossed in the air, etc. Too bad the THREE girls can't get together.
WOW! How scary. My kids are deathly afraid of spiders, but we have NOTHING like that to be worried about around here. I don't think I will tell them about your post. I would have to get a King size bed then.
Hope her precious little hand completely heals soon.
That is very sad and scary - you need to post pictures of her hand - then we could all cringe@! Megan
Poor baby! How is she feeling now?
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