The power of the bill

Wasn't sure what to title this one. An addendum to the previous post:

Grace's 101-102 fever continued all Friday night and through Saturday. The only respite was when we could persuade her to take some Motrin, which once it kicked in had her feeling great for at least a few hours. The hives continued itching horribly, and still covered most of her body (seeming to have shifted into areas not previously hit). She would periodically get the shakes, and still couldn't stand to be touched or moved when not under the influence of the OTC drug. I'm pretty certain that even though that flu test came back negative she actually had it.

You know, the thought just hit me that maybe they got the snot swabs mixed up between the two kids, because Grace sure was the one exhibiting flu-like symptoms.

Anyway, early Saturday evening we noticed that Grace's hands and feet were swollen. Called the 24-hour nurse line and were told that since a rash was involved that she couldn't diagnose anything over the phone and we needed to take her to the hospital.

So Jim stayed home with Alex and I bundled Grace up into the car to take her to Children's Medical Center. It was awful - she was burning up with fever and was in pain anytime she moved. Luckily we didn't have to go to the ER; Children's has a "referral center" for cases just like ours where a nurse tells you to go in. We were there for probably only about an hour total, they gave her a big dose of Motrin and determined that everything was still the fallout from the allergic reaction. But we do have an actual medical term - Erythema Multiforme. Which pretty much means multiple rash spots. By now Grace's huge swaths of red welts had changed to these weird red rings with discoloration in the middle, but were still all over her body. They did say she was slightly dehydrated and we needed to really watch that. So I ended up sharing a bed with her again last night, and every hour or so waking up to her whimpering to rub more cream on her itchy spots and to urge her to drink water out of her cup.

Now to the title of this posting. She was still somewhat sick this morning, though not as itchy as she had been. Jim gives her Motrin while I was at work. By the time I make it home at 1pm, her fever is gone and the nasty spots on her are almost faded away. And the fever didn't return once the Motrin wore off. So I figure it was kind of like watering your lawn and then it raining the next day - maybe her body knows I'm going to get stuck with a hospital bill for last night and figured it could finally fix itself. Because it certainly couldn't have healed itself BEFORE we took her in to the hospital.

I don't care. I'm just overjoyed that my little girl isn't sick anymore.