To pox or not to pox that is the question...

Okay a bit corny but bear with me. Tuesday, my middle one came to me and said the nurse at school put some anti-itch creme on her arm for her bug bites. I asked her to show them to me and they were four big bites that looked like mosquito bites. For her they get big and swollen and they scab over usually at the site of the bite. We didn't think much of it and then the next day she said she had more. She showed me that she was bitten on her belly too. I forgot about it later, the bad mom I am and Thursday she had them on her legs, back, belly, both arms and one on her chin. Well, I woke up with these and thought hmmm....maybe it is in her bed. I stripped her bed down and pulled out all her clothes that were on the floor. I looked under the mattress for signs of bugs or ugh bed bugs... nothing... whew.

That night I tucked her in and looked again and thought maybe they are chicken pox and her body is reacting funny to them and causing them to be bigger than normal. I looked it up on the internet and found that often they look like bug bites and get a little white puss in the middle and then pop and scab over. Sounds a lot like what is going on here. My better half and I talk and decide to look at them in the morning and call the doctor. The next morning they are still there and she has another one too. We call and get an appointment. We send her to school and I go to work and as I am sitting there I start to feel very guilty that we sent her to school contageous with a highly transferable disease. I call the nurse attendant who just happens to be my hubby's aunt and she takes one look at her and tells me to come get her.

On my way to pick her up I call the doctor's office again and ask to get an earlier appointment and tell them that she may have chicken pox. They then tell me not to bring her and to treat her for them at home. I told them I wanted a difinitive diagnosis and I wanted her seen and by the way doesn't the CDC want a diagnosis and a count and aren't they doing a disservice to all the classmates who need to know if a child has been sitting in their class touching their pencils with this disease? The nurse then says to bring her in before they reopen for the afternoon appointments. Basically, please come when there aren't any patients around. They then said to tell the office worker to send you straight back to the examining rooms. Okay.

So we get there and she doesn't have the pox, she has HIVES! The doc asks if there was anything that we changed recently, foods, drinks, soaps, shampoos, detergents..... YES!!! my husband thought it would be okay to buy the generic brand of laundry detergent and I did laundry last weekend. Yes most of her clothes were in the wash and yes they were washed with the generic detergent. The doctor said that it was most likely what was causing the hives and that they have been coming on gradually all week because she has been wearing the clothes freshly washed all week.

Final answer? Benadryl and rewash all the clothes I washed last week, including all towels, bedsheets and anything that she will come into contact with.

Thanks honey for trying to save a penny....