Seriously, I had NO clue, she showed ZERO of the regular symptoms.

Her only symptoms were a mild cough a few days prior, and a weird rash that popped up on Sunday, which, since she had no fever or any complaints of a sore throat, we chalked up to an allergic reaction to something.  When it didn’t disappear on its own by Monday morning, I called to make an appointment with her doctor.

The doc looked at her rash, then looked in her throat and said he suspected it may be strep, since her throat looked a little irritated (no mention of  any white spots or anything like that).  That kind of blew my mind since she wasn’t exhibiting any signs of it (that I knew of, anyway), and had no fever, and hadn’t had a fever in any of the previous days…

He did a throat culture, and a few minutes later came back in and said it tested positive for strep.  Talk about suprising the heck out of me!  So he prescribed antibiotics, and said she’d be contagious until 24 hours after her first dose, which meant I’d be keeping her home again on Tuesday, too.

That has to be the strangest manifestation of strep I’ve seen yet – just a simple little mild itchy rash and a bit of a cough.

Warning – poo talk ahead!

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Yet another reason not to go to places like chuck e cheese……  they’re germ farms.

The Kiddo apparently picked up a bug while there on Sunday, last night she threw up and had a mild fever.  Thankfully she slept thru the night without any further incidents, and she seems to be doing ok today so far *knock on wood*… I just hope she is 100% by tomorrow morning so we can go and have Thanksgiving lunch/dinner at her grandmother’s house.  It would suck to miss it because she is ill. 

Right now she’s sitting on her bed watching Tinkerbell on the iMac that I moved into her room for the day.  I figure that having her in her room to watch movies will help her get some rest to get over the bug.  My office is right next door to her room so when she hollers for more juice (generic pedialyte) or crackers I can easily hear her.  And also hear the precursor signs of an impending upchuck…

Originally the plan today was for me to work from home so that I could go to the thanksgiving lunch her preschool was having and that parents had been invited to… but her getting sick changed that, so I ended up staying up late last night to do my telecommute work so that today I could be free to deal with a potential barf fest.  I’m glad she is doing better today, I really hate having to hover with the bucket with a young girl who is only just grasping why mommy has to hold it in front of her when she wants very little to do with said bucket.  When she’s feeling ok she kind of gets the idea of the bucket, but when her tummy starts feeling yucky she wants nothing to do with it and pushes it away.  That’s always fun.  Ha.

First, there was a sign on the door of her classroom, (a few weeks ago), noting a confirmed case of strep was in the pre-k room next door (they go through the same main door, pre-k is separated from preschool by a half-door).

That weekend, she came down with a sore throat and spent a morning throwing up.  Then a week later, her daddy got sick, and when he went to the doctor the following Monday, the doctor’s suspected strep but he tested negative so they can only assume it may have been, based on his high fever and other symptoms.

Then, she gets impetigo, which is caused by strep.  We diligently put on the antibiotic ointment on the sores, and they’re pretty much all but completely gone.

Now?  Friggin’ PINK EYE.  ALSO caused by – you guessed it, strep.

UNCLE!  UNCLE!!

Please let up on the illnesses, please!  We’re running out of sick/PTO time at work, and there is still three months of the year left!!  AAAGGGHH!!! 

Yep.  Eating my words.

*sigh*

Topical antibiotic cream, 3 times a day, for 10 days, keep her home from school today and tomorrow, blah blah blah.

Boy do I feel dumb.

And a bit ticked off.  I called the daycare this morning to call the Kiddo out sick for the day.  I called them again after the doctor’s appointment, to let them know what she had.

The girl that answered the phone asked, “What is that?” when I told her what the Kiddo has. Then, “Is it contagious?”

Oh. My.  *double sigh*

Yes, it is contagious.  Very.  I told her I was letting them know so they could watch the other kids there to make sure it wasn’t going around.  Because lord knows it probably is, chances are pretty good that is where the Kiddo got it, not to mention the fact that she was there both Thursday AND Friday with full blown bilsters. And because, not knowing any different, I thought it was simply a contact blister from her pull-ups. What is to say that any other parent wouldn’t think something similar if they have no idea what it is, like I did?

So, I am staying home with her today and tomorrow, and my husband will stay with her on Wednesday just for good measure.  If we had enough vacation time we’d keep her the whole week and only pay half the tuition, but the doc said we only needed to keep her home for two days; we’re just opting to keep her a 3rd day just in case.

Now I know what to watch for in the future.  Man I hate daycare bugs!

Those blisters might NOT be caused by her pull-ups. 

One more popped up on her leg, nowhere near where her pull-ups would be, and it was when she’d been in underwear for two straight days.  My MIL had looked up some pictures of a certain skin infection when she had the Kiddo overnight on Saturday, and showed the pictures to me when we went over to hang out and pick up the Kiddo yesterday.

Yeah. Those pictures showed what looked an awful lot like what I saw on her tummy on Friday.  *sigh*

So today I’m staying home with her to take her to the doctor to have what’s left checked out – plus another patch of OTHER skin ickies on her other leg (unrelated to the new stuff – looks more like zits or bug bites), and the cough that cropped up over the weekend.

This is what we get for her switching rooms at school.  She was doing well with not bringing home ickies in the other room, then she gets moved and *bam*!  First the tummy ickies, now some skin ickies & a cough.

Yippee.

…to the barbeque. Her aunt was ok with her coming over.  I just hope the Kiddo wasn’t still contagious in some way.

She had fun though.  She really likes to go swimming, even though she doesn’t really swim yet.

I had to step away for a moment, the Kiddo wanted to go to bed.  I know! Shocking!

That is, until I took her temperature.  !$@*!%&*!  Back up to 102.  I KNEW we should have stayed home!!  AAGGGGH!!!  Now I’m going to have to worry about whether anyone at the barbeque caught this from her – and there were seven other people there.  All but one of which who gave the Kiddo hugs & kisses before we left – and that was only because this person is sister-in-law’s mom, who visits a few times a year but we don’t always see, and she is the Kiddo’s cousins’ grandmother, not the Kiddo’s.

So anyway.

*sigh*

Next time I will learn to trust my gut.  What kind of germ is deceptive like this though??  Her fever was completely gone ALL MORNING!  Only to turn up again tonight??  👿

I put her to bed with a fever, and this morning she doesn’t feel feverish at all.  The first thing she asked for was milk – but she is getting pedialyte instead – and to play Elmo on the computer.  We have this Sesame Street game for 1-3.5 year olds, and that is what she is currently playing.

I’m glad she’s feeling better, but we’re still going to stay home from her uncle’s barbeque, and swimming.  She doesn’t even know there were plans to do that since we were only invited yesterday and we haven’t spoken openly about it around her, which is for the best, since she loves swimming and loves going to her cousins’ house.  Oh well, she won’t even know what she is missing.

Dang I’m tired though. We stayed up watching “The Invasion” and just as we went to bed, she started stirring in her sleep, coughing and crying, so I had to stay up a little longer to make sure she wasn’t going to be sick or something.  She was just restless.  But then I had trouble falling asleep after that, every little cough that came from her room, made my eyes shoot open with the thoughts of, “please don’t start puking kid!” dashing through my mind.  And because my mind was on high alert, any cough from my husband did the same thing, even though he isn’t sick. 🙄 Then I had some really weird dreams, too.

And we’re out of soda. Guess I’ll go make some flavored water for now.

So… I was wrong.  It IS a stomach bug. 😥

I’ve been following her around with a bucket since about 2pm after we got up from her nap.

Poor kid.

Today she isn’t feeling very well.  Her throat is sore (I can see that it is a little bit red), and she keeps saying her tummy hurts.  She ate a few bites of pancakes so I don’t think it’s her stomach, but rather her lower intestines.  She’s already poo’d once, but I’m thinking she needs another go at it for relief.

It happened yesterday afternoon, after we picked her up from school.

We picked her up, drove home and dropped off my husband and then went straight to the store for some groceries.  Within a couple of minutes of being there, she started to scratch at her sides, so I checked and sure enough, little patches of hives.  So far, this is the only thing in common with Sunday.  But NOT with Wednesday, as we had been at home all day before she started to break out.

I think next on our list would be to start a process of elmination.  It doesn’t seem to be any foods that I can determine, and the environment has only been the same twice out of the three times.

I think I may start with the laundry detergent.  When I dropped her off at daycare and told them she’d had another breakout after school, they started asking if we’d made any changes recently – clothes, laundry detergent, foods, etc.   Her clothes are the same ones she’s been wearing for at least a month.  There have been no new foods.  The laundry detergent… Well, we use the same BRAND, but previously I had been using the dye & perfume free version, this time we got the scented/color version.  But why, if she’s wearing an item of clothing that was washed in that detergent, would she NOT break out within moments of it being put on? Why wait until the end of the day?

Still, I will go buy another bottle of the dye/perfume free version and wash her clothes in it this weekend and see if that makes any difference.  And just to make sure it isn’t some food issue that, even though she’s been eating the same stuff for quite a while, something didn’t just change in her system and start reacting funny, I will track what she eats, too.

I just don’t want her to end up having to be a benedryl junkie just because she has hives break outs for no apparent reason. 🙁