More Bloodwork

We met with Dr. R today (the pediatric rheumethologist) and even though Ben had to have another blood draw (screams from little man) she seems to think that all of this is a result of an allergic reaction to the amoxicillin. Here are the details:

I told Dr. R the history and what has happened these last few days and she read over all the faxes (from our 2 ER visits and his history from Dr. Z's office) and looked over Ben. Ben screamed the entire time and hated every minute of the exam. The most Dr. R did was listen to his heart, check his ears, nose, and mouth, and look at the hives on his skin, but little man thought it was the end of the world. She noted his elbows, knees, knuckles, and ankles that seemed to be only slightly swollen. She said his hives seem to be responding well to the steroids. Just to rule out some last few things, she wanted him to have more blood drawn. She did say she felt fairly confident that he was not showing any signs of juvenile arthritis, which is a HUGE relief to us. She said that swelling of joints is part of what can happen when someone has an allergic reaction, but usually not to the extend that Ben had on Thursday. Everyone responds differently to things, so that was probably just his little body's way of responding to the medicine.

Gregg took Ben to the sitter's for the afternoon so that we both could go back to work. I picked up Ben after school and took him to St. John's to have the blood taken. He didn't scream as much as he did in the ER, but it was still heart-breaking to sit through. Dr. R said she will call when she gets the results, probably the end of the week. We pray that the tests will all be negative and then we can say all of this has been an allergic reaction. We hope his white blood cell count is back to normal, as that was the only "concern" with his bloodwork that was done in the ER.

Thank you for checking in on Ben. We appreciate your thoughts and prayers. I'll post when we get the results back from Dr. R.