Poison Ivy

Friday WG was playing next door and got into a wee bit of poison ivy. It wasn't too bad, but I guess the first exposure isn't usually. Saturday Tim took her outside with him while he was working on the yard. She was warned several times not to venture into the "jungle" but WG is not always the best listener. She is also at the age where she thinks that she knows better than we do. (oh, wait, isn't that just a universal thing with kids?) Tim turned his back for a second, and when he looked back WG was in the "jungle," had picked some poison ivy and was rubbing it on her face. This time she reacted. I did not see WG until Sunday morning because I was out playing weddings past her bedtime Saturday. When she got up she had red rashy streaks on her face, including on her eyelids, and her eyes were puffy and a bit swollen. The rash also extended to the inside of WG's nose. We called WG's pediatrician's on-call service for advice. The nurse said that they needed to see her within 24 hours of exposure since it involved her face and strongly suggested that we take her in the the emergency room.

So we packed WG up and headed to the ER at Children's. If my math is correct, this is the third time we have hit the ER in about a month and a half. It is a new record for WG.... I have lost count of how many times overall we have been in the ER with her, I think it is around 15 or so. Yup, this is a lot, but in our defense the only time that wasn't an emergency and was due to parental freak-out was when her toe got smooshed under in her shoe and she screamed so much for so long that we thought that she had dislocated her elbow. She was not talking at the time and Nursemaid's elbow is what over 50% of her ER visits have been for. The discharge papers for that visit had the instructions, "Have the child measured for larger shoes." Our other favorite discharge instructions instructed her to avoid pushing objects up her nose.

WG got a big dose of oral steroids at the ER and within an hour looked (and felt) a whole lot better. She is on oral steroids for the rest of this week and is also taking benadryl for the itch. Today the rash has faded almost completely. WG is feeling much better. Tim took a picture of her yesterday. I'll edit it in here when he downloads it.