Friday, February 10, 2006

My family might just be better off without feet

Sheesh. I tell ya. So many foot problems.
Yesterday, the kids were at the park and Zachy started screaming bloody murder. Dillon was next to him and started saying, "no Zachy! NO!! ZACHY!" Etc Etc. Scaring me to death. I need to point out that Zach was on a trike so his feet were far apart from each other.
Anyway, Zachy's left foot had found itself in a fire ant mound, and the vicious boogers were attacking my baby!!!
Stupid Stupid ants.
We get him all brushed off and the welts start to form, it takes them a minute to develop. I counted about 30 bites on his foot. He then promptly conks out. When he woke up, he was in so much pain. He couldn't stand on his foot and would just shriek if anything touched it. By now it was hot and red as well. He also kept whining about his thighs and scratching them.
While he had been sleeping I did some research and found out the fire ant isn't actually even in the ant family, rather the wasp family, and their venom is the same. Which means that it is the same idea, the more often you get stung, the more likely you are to have an allergic reaction.
Now Zachy has never had a normal fire ant bite. His always react much different then everyone elses.
So I called up the new doctor. They were so nice, by the way, and I'm so glad we switched. They said he was having an allergic reaction and needed to go to the ER, if for nothing else, antibiotics.
So off we went. After waiting forever we were seen and given Benadryl and antibiotics. They then proceeded to tell me to be careful next time and watch for wheezing because most likely it will be worse next time.
When we got home and undressed him, we realized he had hives all over his legs and up to about the middle of his back.
This morning, his foot looks much better, and doesn't seem to hurt him, but I still can't touch it. I called the dr to see if we needed to follow up. We go in to see the new doctor on Tuesday. They were concerned enough though, to call him in an epi pen script. They want us to have it in case he should get bit again before Tuesday.
How awesome is that? I totally expected to be blown off, because really, it's fire ants, they're everywhere and this must be so common. But no. They actually care.
The whole thing got me thinking about what would happen if there were an anaphylactic reactions. How fast could an ambulance get here, and what about the security at the gate?
Here's a picture after the benadryl kicked in. It was looking better by this point. There are more bites on the inside of his foot. Keep in mind that this is the same venom as a wasp, so even though it doesn't look so bad there, it was pretty bad!

1 comment:

gina (uk) said...

Ouch.... poor little man :( Hope it soon clears uo completely.

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