The Van Aartsen Adventures

Friday, March 18, 2011

You may be thinking, "What the heck is Idiopathic Utricaria." Well, I found out the hard way by taking a not-so-expenses-paid trip to the E.R. tonight around 10:00. It all started after supper when the side of my face felt hot. I didn't think much of it. So we stopped at the indoor rummages and hit up Mc Donalds for a dessert (the snack sized Mc Flurries are just the right size, and easy on the pocket book). I was feeling the side of my face and noticed I had a bug bite of some sort right next to my right eye. I also felt one on my neck. It was about the size a nickel. This wasn't completely unusual as I swell up whenever I get a bug bite to the size of a half dollar. Anyways, once we got home (around 7:30) I consulted my sister who is a nurse and she thought this whole thing was strange and figured it was a spider bite without looking at it.

Ginormous Welt!

As the night went on, around 8:15ish I put some Hydrocortizone cream on the welts. It was this time it started to spread....and fast. I had DH go get me some Benadryl at 9:30 to try and clear this thing up. By that point it was all the way down the side of my face and half way across my neck. It was this point I was thinking this is not normal - going from the size of a quarter to about 3-4" wide and 2" tall within an hour and a half! I knew acute care was closed, but I thought I would wait a while for the Benadryl to do it's job.

So I gave Macyn a bath and Josh then put her to bed. When he was finished he came out and told me how much worse it had gotten in the 10 minutes he didn't see me. It was now 10:00 and he convinced me to get this checked out by the Dr. and not wait until morning. I was worried too because my sister said if it swells too bad I could have trouble breathing.

Reluctantly I went to the ER, just thinking in the back of my head how much this is gonna cost. So the Dr. comes in and exclaims, "THAT IS A HUGE HIVE!" He went over my symptoms and diagnosed it as Idiopathic Utricaria, which essentially means that you're allergic to something but nobody knows what it is. It can last a day or months. He once had a patient who had it over her body and sent her to a specialist and they couldn't figure out what caused it. The weird part is, I have absolutely no known allergies. He mentioned possibly keeping me over night to make sure the swelling on my neck doesn't cause me trouble breathing, but he was pretty confident I would be okay. He told me to call ASAP if I get any other weird symptoms or can't breath. It definitely is more swollen so it feels like I have gunk in the throat, but I feel like the airway is still clear. He told me to keep taking Benadryl and Zyrtec as needed, and there isn't much else I can do. I cannot think of anything I ate out of the ordinary (this isn't caused by topical applications), so its pretty much a mystery.

So even though I hate to see the ER bill, I am glad I went and knowing it isn't anything serious. And right now as I type this, it is from ear to ear and about 3.5" thick. My face is really hot and the welt kinda burns. I just hope it doesn't last too long since I look like I gained 30 lbs! The Dr. told me it was a good idea to come in. He's a pretty blunt Dr. who tells it like it is. He told me to google Idiopathic Utricaria and I told him I would but I couldn't spell it...

so he wrote it down for me :)

Monday, March 14, 2011

17 Months

Our big girl is 17 months old! She has hit a lot of milestones this past month. She has added another word to her vocabulary - "No!" I blame her Dad. One day he goes, "Macyn, can you say "no, no no?" and what does she do? Repeats "No, no no!" and now, she says "no" to mostly everything.

Mom: "Macyn, let's brush your hair" - "no"

Mom: "Macyn, let's pick up your toys" - "no, no, no"

...........you get the idea.

Then I will say, "can you say hi?" "HI." So those are her only 2 words she says consistently. No and Hi. Quite the vocabulary. She has also started to scowl. She wrinkles her forehead and looks at you very sternly. She does this when she is thinking about what you just said, or if she doesn't want to do something. Usually with a "no," accompanied by a scowl!

Another feat we are trying to do is potty training. It was going well the first few days, then skipped a couple, then went well again. It's exhausting, really. We aren't going full forced training, but she does understand. Sometimes she is stubborn and won't go on her potty, but she always shows us that she is wet by grabbing her diaper. We still try daily for her to go potty, but aren't pushing it. She went 10 times this past week, so it's a start. If nothing else, at least it saves on some diapers!

She has also learned how to take my step stool and use it to reach items in the bathroom and other places. This just means that we need to watch her closer than ever! She also likes to push the paddles for the water and ice dispense on the fridge. We turned the child lock on pronto. She climbs chairs and gets into trouble on the table as well.

She still likes to brush her teeth and gets really excited about washing her hands. I think she is still working on her incisors. I wish they would come through already. The bottom one is almost through, but I wish we would just be done and over with - until her 2 year molars come in!

She enjoys dancing and playing with toys. She is even starting to move forward in her Cozy Coupe instead of backwards! We still think she is tall for her age when we compare her to her daycare playmates. There are some kids in her room who are older than her and she is just as tall. I had to pick her up from the 2 year old room and she was as tall as some of the girls in there! It will be interesting to see where her height falls at her next check up. Until then, you be the judge. The pants I bought her a couple of months ago are getting too short. They are sized 18-24 months and look like floodwater pants. I guess it's time to break out the 2T jeans!