Home Sweet Home

Whew!  I am telling you it is so GOOD to be home!!

Let me give you the Reader's Digest version of our trip:  First, Michael got sick last Sunday (before we left).  I kept him home from school on Monday and Monday night he threw up and there was some blood in it.  Yuck.  So on Tuesday we took him to the doctor and lo and behold, he has strep.  In order to make things easy on both him and us, they gave him a shot of Penicillin. By Wednesday morning, he seemed to be doing okay.

Now, during all of this, starting also on Monday night, Michael complained of an itchy eye.  He rubbed it so much that the right eye swelled up.  Actually, it looked as if something bit him under the eye but after a dose of Benedryl and a cold compress, he was fine.  Tuesday afternoon, after the trip to the doctor, it happened again.  Okay, fine, another dose of Benedryl and a cold compress and again, fine.  Two hours later, his OTHER eye looked like it had a bubble on his lid!  I did the cold compress on it and after a little while, it was fine.  We did eye drops and again, he was okay.  

On the road Wednesday, he complained that his eyes were itchy and to be honest, once we hit Florida we were all feeling all kinds of allergy nonsense.  We got to my in-laws and by the time we had dinner, both his eyes were red and puffy.  I ran to Walgreens to see if the Pharmacist could recommend anything and he could not - but suggested getting him to an urgent care.  It was 9:30 on Thanksgiving Eve, no one was open.  I called the pediatrician after-hours hotline and they upped his dose of Benedryl but recommended an urgent care, as well.

Well, when he woke up the next morning, his whole FACE was swollen!  It was so scary!  We put him in the car, tried one urgent care (it was closed) and then hit the ER.  We spent almost FOUR HOURS there to have a doctor say "He's having an allergic reaction to something".  Really?  You think?  They gave him a dose of Prednisone and Benedryl and told us to keep up the Benedryl three times a day for a few days until the swelling goes down.  Can I tell you how MISERABLE and tired he was?  He slept through Thanksgiving dinner and was pretty much cranky the rest of the time.  

Are we having fun yet?

Friday wasn't much better for him.  He was still a bit puffy, still cranky.  Nick and I went shopping in the morning and then I got a massive migraine.  I tried to nap it off but it didn't work out too well.  We took Michael for a follow up and were told that he was going to be fine...who knows why he had a reaction but they don't think it was to the Penicillin.  We went out to dinner Friday night, shopped some more on Saturday and on Sunday...I got to go to Disney!!

We did "Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party" and it was amazing!  We shopped and had lunch at Downtown Disney first and then went and saw the life-size ginger bread house at the Grand Floridian and then hit the Magic Kingdom from 4:30-midnight for the Christmas party.  I took about 150 pictures and it felt like we walked about ten miles by the time the day was over!

I could barely walk on Monday and spent most of the day in an exhausted haze.  We left Florida this morning around 10 and got home around 7:30.  It is now around 10:15 and my laundry is drying, we are completely unpacked and the house is in order.  We have school and work in the morning and life is returning to normal.

Life is good...