Building Character..

It has a been a great week for BUILDING CHARACTER.. The day after I blogged about Benjy's backing accident, I got rear ended by a neighbor who doesn't have insurance. He hit us pretty hard so Kaydree screamed and I really thought there would be a lot of damage but there wasn't. Of course while Benjy was gone this week we go a lot of snow and as I was shoveling and I glanced over at the snowblower and said to myself..."Why haven't I learned how to use that dumb thing?" I called my dad and asked him if he could run me though it over the phone. His response was, "You don't need to go anywhere, just stay home while Benjy is gone." So of course after I had the accident I had to tell him, he was right, I should have just stayed home! While Benjy was gone we were battling Kaydree getting over strep and Kyce was developing what we thought to be dry skin. I kept trying everything from baby lotion to aveno to Vaseline and then to baby oil. It kept getting worse. It wasn't until I called a friend in a panic wondering if he was having an allergic reaction to something that I decided to take him to urgent care after she said that it could be a strep rash. Since Kaydree had strep and even though they kept telling me it was highly unlikely that a baby would get step, they tested him. For the next 20 minutes the Doctor explained to me why it wasn't strep. About the time she was ready to send us on our way, the nurse popped her head in and said, "He's positive." I wish I could have taken a picture of that doctor's face. She said, "In 12 years of practice I haven't seen a baby with strep." So of course this sets me into a panic and guilty feeling. Why did my baby have to be the first and he has had this rash/dry skin for a week...I felt horrible! Had he been in pain for a week? He was eating fine and happy, but if he had a rash like this from strep, how long had he felt yucky? I had done pretty well all week with Benjy gone but getting sick kiddos sends me into a tail spin. I already had an appointment with our pediatrician the next day and debated canceling it. I am a huge googler and decided to look up what strep rashes look like and wanted to find others who had babies with strep. (which I found numerous people, so how rare is it?) The odd thing was that Kyce's rash didn't look anything like the other step rashes. So that bothered me. I decided to go to our own doctor and I am glad that I did. The reason babies don't usually have strep is because they don't usually test them. Babies don't get Rheumatic Fever from strep which is the reason why they don't need to treat them as the doctor explained it. Since I had already started the antibiotic he said to finish it but that Kyce would have been fine without it. What Kyce has is seborrheic infantile dermatitis, basically cradle cap---gone bad. It spreads throughout the body! yep...felt even worse after finding this out! It is an oil gland problem and all of the baby oil I was applying was making it worse! We had rubbed his scalp but with all that hair we didn't even realize how bad it was. So after massaging his scalp for a long, very long time, washing off the baby oil and using hydrocortizone cream..his skin and scalp are clearing up! Here is what it looked like.

He has remained a happy little guy despite the "condition." More info on the condition: http://www.skinsight.com/infant/seborrheicDermatitisPediatric.htm