England Expat Adventures: Medical mystery

The aftermath of the beds bugs fiasco:

-Wash all clothes and put through the dryer to kill off any bugs (and ultimately shrink my socks and other things to Hailey size)

-Stick bags and stuffed animals and other things that were brought into the contaminated room and can't be washed in the freezer for a few days.

-Do a s-load of laundry

-Scrub down the kids

-Apply Tiger Balm to practically every square inch of his body

-called hotel to alert them to the bed bug situation

Poor Ethan was miserable and didn't sleep much (which meant I didn't sleep much either since I slept in his bed that night). Can't blame him-look at this!

And it got worse with the hot room.

Monday we headed out to find some potential remedies to ease the pain. I got some sort of calamine related lotion at the drugstore and they directed me to the "Chemist" (pharmacy) a few doors down to get some Benadryl for kids under 6. The pharmacist looked him over and said this was an allergic reaction/rash/hives on top of whatever bites and this antihistamine medication, Piriton, would most likely address it or at least help or clue us in if he was suffering from something else. Hailey was pretty much screaming and Ethan was whining. They told me I should go ahead and give him the dose on the box right then so maybe it could kick in. I didn't read it closely and started giving him 4 out of the 6 mini spoonfuls. Turns out it was ONE spoonful. The clerk alerted me that it was only supposed to be one spoonful and I looked at the box again to see that the 6 spoonfuls was for a period of 24hrs! (I had assumed it was just the other conversion in the grid). I had a look of horror on my face and the pharmacist was super nice and said, "Don't panic, you look panicked. It will be totally fine, he will just be drowsy which he would be anyways." Omigosh, what have I done? Well, it turns out that he was not drowsy at all. Quite the opposite. Of course my kid is one of the few that has doesn't get drowsy from Benadryl! But, after an hour or two, all of the redness and skin irritation was pretty much completely gone-it was amazing!

Only it returned overnight and when the meds wore off. Still a lot better though! And he slept through the night which was good. So we headed to preschool. I was telling one of the teachers about the non-contagious bites and how he was on Benadryl and that he had cream they could help him apply if needed. But they told me that he looked pretty pale and it looked like an allergic reaction and I should take him to the doc straightaway.

So, I had to find our medical info. sheet. And then call 111 to find the nearest non-emergency general practitioner and let them know the I was not registered with a surgical (something or other). They went through a bazillion questions. Meanwhile Ethan and Hailey are screaming and squealing and running around the mall and sprinkling the sunflower/nut/raisin mix all over every place possible aside from their mouth. Several of the questions were completely irrelevant or I didn't know (I don't know the address of the mall we were standing in, just give me the number of a doc!). So then they transfer me to an EMT and I have to explain the whole thing again. She gives me numbers for two places nearby. First number is no longer in service. Second number puts me through the message w options and then hangs up on me after that while I am holding to make an appt (I tried several times). So I have to call 111 and answer the same bazillion questions AGAIN while my kids are going berserk in the background. (Just give me some more numbers for this zip code!) The lady was super nice though and acknowledged that it was ridiculous that I had to go through all of that again. Got number and went in. Filled in paperwork and had to come back in 45min.

Hailey insisted on pushing the stroller. Look at her on her tiptoes:

So we wait in the waiting room while the kids play with the germ infested wooden beads and wire thing that every doctor waiting room has (some things are the same!). And the doc took one look at him and said it was an allergic reaction (likely to the detergent the hotel used for their sheets) and most likely not bed bugs (gee, glad I went to all those lengths to de-contaminate our belongings). And to give it 3-4more days and give him the Piriton regularly. And that he just looked pale/under eye circles just from lack of sleep. 4 hours of phone calls and waiting for this 5min. visit and a £50 charge that we'll need to send to insurance for reimbursement. It helped to know that it was hives from an allergic reaction to something though and probably not bed bugs. So then we had to get cash out and come back to pay the out of pocket fee. Ethan cracked me up when he said "we're baaaaaaack" to the receptionist. I asked to use the weight, height, BMI, pulse machine and the lady gave me a token for it. Ha, why not?

Next order of business-getting a jump rope for my at home workouts until I can find childcare (I have looked/asked around and nothing yet). Check out this fancy half off boxing jump rope with weighted cushy handles and a leather rope. Step aside Rocky Balboa!

I got another plastic one for Ethan (and in case the weighted one was too much for me) and was teaching him how to jumprope. Definitely a learned skill, I forgot that it is a little challenging when you first learn how to do it. We'll keep practicing. We also drew hopscotch and I was showing him how to play.