Kay Kay ate a light breakfast that morning, but not light enough to be worrisome. She was fully awake by that point, and we decided to try to keep her resting by letting her watch television. The only thing she could tell me didn't feel "right" was the area around her eyes and nose. And she mentioned her throat hurt. While I did consider what she told me, I didn't put much stock in it because she hadn't complained about anything. And, I think children are like little humans in that if they go looking for something, they're likely to find it. (Or should I say like little pediatricians?) I scurried to the drugstore to see what immune-boosting products they might have. I felt like I had won the lottery by finding a homeopathic combination remedy for allergies and a bottle of elderberry syrup.
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| These photos are totally unrelated to this blog post, but apparently I didn't take any pictures of "sick" Kay Kay. |
By about noon that day, she seemed pretty normal. If she had any fever, it was very little. She wanted to go outside and play so we did. She was riding a battery-operated toy, and I showed her how to move the lever up and down to switch from forward to reverse. I went inside to put away the lunch dishes, and I heard her crying outside. When she came in, she showed me her right middle finger. It had gotten caught between the lever and the seat of the toy and was scraped as she pulled it out. It was bleeding a little. I asked her what had happened to her pointer finger, but she just kept telling me about her middle finger getting stuck. The Nana warned me to watch out if she ever got "really hurt" because of the way she was carrying on about that scrape.
I knew that was completely out of character, and I continued to be concerned about the red, swollen right pointer finger. We went home right after dinner and slept pretty well that night. The next morning, I noticed that the pointer finger was still red, hot, and swollen, and now so was her left foot. Red, hot, and swollen. Also, I noticed a slight rash over most of her body but especially near the creases. The swollen appendages were really concerning me now so I decided to take her to the pediatrician. Trust me when I say this was not an easy decision. Kay Kay's seen an allopathic physician three times now in her three and a half years. Once when she was eight weeks old to reassure some family members she was "okay", once when she was fourteen months old with a double ear infection, and now this.
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| Well, I did say "allergies", and here are azaleas in the background. Notice JayBird always has one foot in the air. |
The doctor informed us that the rash was very typical strep onset scarlet fever. Swollen appendages and all. He did a throat swab and confirmed that the strep bacteria was present. He wrote a prescription for amoxicillin and wanted her fever gone by the next morning. I'm only a fan of antibiotics when they're really needed so obviously I asked for an alternative. Imagine my dismay when he told me there aren't any, but that amoxicillin is like a wonder drug because it targets very specifically. I did believe it when he told me that. I believe it targets bacteria. Bad bacteria and good bacteria. All bacteria. No mention of probiotics or side effects.
Since the nurse documented her temperature at 98.9 degrees, I considered my first mission accomplished: eliminating the fever by the next morning. I can't imagine anyone who would consider 98.9 degrees a fever. So what I knew is that I had a child who didn't look sick or act sick, and I wasn't about to attack her obviously well-functioning immune system. I knew she did have strep so I felt like I had to get busy to figure out how to beat it. I did what any rational parent does: I put out a call for "strep veterans" on Facebook. I needed to hear from people who had beaten it without antibiotics. As I knew they would, they came through for me. I talked to my Shaklee friend who was able to get some of my "natural antibiotic" stash replenished that day.
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| Sometimes these are the "good sides". |
Later that afternoon, I noticed a little white pustule forming just above her left pinky toe. She asked for bandages for her foot, and as I applied them to her feet, The Papa observed that they followed an almost perfect line. Right along where her shoe would have been. Can you guess? Fire ants! I counted about nine bites on that foot, but the only one that formed the pustule was the one that would have been just inside the shoe. My guess is that fire ants were stinging her, and when she reached down to brush them off her finger was stung, too.
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| I have no idea why she wanted her socks pulled up. |
We consider this girl to be pretty smart, but this is not the first time she has been obviously stung by fire ants and not reported it. I'm just not sure what to say about that. It did confirm what I had suspected though: it wasn't really the scrape on that right middle finger that was bothering her. (See why I don't put much stock in her self-analysis?)
The next morning we went straight-away to see our chiropractor who started our examination in a back room. He soon asked if we could get back out to the tables so he could do the adjustments more easily. He considered her subclinical. Totally asymptomatic. Apparently people walk around with strep all the time. We talked for a few minutes about the immune-boosting things we were doing. I asked him if I should have her re-tested in a week or so and if he could do it. His answer? "Yes, I can test her, and no you shouldn't re-test her. The only reason to re-test her is if you plan to treat her with an antibiotic, and if I know you, Denise, you're not going to do that." Fast friends, him and me. He and I. Whatever. What he said (and he's right) was that discovering she had strep was totally coincidental. If not for those fire ants, we never would have known because I would not have taken her to an allopathic doctor for a six-hour fever and a slight rash in the creases.
Anyway, the days came and went. No further symptoms. Kind of anti-climactic, I know, but that's kind of the way it is on Maplechase Drive. Perhaps what the pediatrician meant to say that day was, "I don't know of any alternatives." Soon he will though. I believe that in Kay Kay's lifetime medical records will be computerized and stored in a central database, and I want hers to be as accurate as possible. To that end, I've written a letter to the pediatrician explaining the course of action we took so that her record shows we didn't treat this case of strep with an antibiotic. I want him to know there are alternatives. The Papa says it seems like just a nice way of saying, "You're wrong." Totally not my purpose.
But he was.
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| Typical. Who's going to eat it first? |
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