B's Itchies

So I never actually got a picture of poor Brecken's bumps.  Sad.  They were impressive.  They would come and go.  He had them for a week and a half before I brought him in.  The first time.  She was clueless.  I was thinking maybe dust mites.  She finally agreed it might be that.  So we left the office with thoughts of a really good mattress protector and to come back if it doesn't get better.  The itchies continued.  These were bad, people.  He would wake up in the middle of the night itching and itching and itching.  He would wake up multiple times.  Every night.  So entering week two, we questioned Lincoln having an ear infection.  Naturally it's the weekend.  So I blessed Eric with taking both boys to Urgent Care.  The Urgent Care doc was stumped.  He gave us a prescription for steroids to try and knock it out of his system, thinking it's possibly poison ivy.  My dad was insistent it was poison ivy.  I did not think so.  The steroids started helping.  After his 5 day course, the itchies came back with a vengeance.  We gave it another week and a half wanting to give his system a chance to bounce back.  Nothing.  So I brought him back to the doctor.  At this point, it's been 5 weeks of the itchies.  Severe itchies.  He itched them all raw and then itched them some more.  Our doctor was still stumped.  She wanted to treat him for Scabies.  She also told me I could get a second opinion from a dermatologist, to be sure.  I went with the second opinion.  The treatment for Scabies is taking baths in insecticide.  I'd like to be 100% sure before I do that, thanks.  We left the doctor's office with words of "We'll call you with a derm appt in a week."  I took matters into my own hands.  I called my dermatologist in GR and spoke to the lady on the phone.  The best she could do was an appointment one week later.  She did tell me to call every day, 5 times a day if it were her son, to get a cancellation appointment.  I said oookkk.  This is how bad she felt for him.  She called back less than an hour later saying she talked to a doc and they squeezed him in....tomorrow.  AAAAAmen.
Off we went.
She looked him over and was completely confident in saying it wasn't dust mites, scabies or poison ivy.  My final (and biggest but it didn't seem likely) concern was a reaction from a tick bite.  She was confident it wasn't that either.  We could give it another week or two because these things usually clear up in 6 weeks.  And since we were almost to that point, we could wait.  But if it didn't clear up, we would have to come back.  The other option was to take a sample of it right then and there.  Then we would know.  After 4 doctors appointments and 4 stumped doctors,  I chose take a sample of it right then and there.  And I didn't want to come back.  This kid was such a trooper.  They did a great job explaining what they were doing to him.  I prefer explanations to what is really happening vs making it vague thing.

His war wound.  You can see the bumps above it.  Wouldn't you know, the bumps started clearing up a few days after his appointment.  Which she said they might.  The call came back as insect bite which is most times a spider bite.  So now we know, if it happens again.  Poor boy.

So this kid had two stitches.  To which I said I will remove them myself thankyouverymuch.  They said ok, here's a suture kit.  I didn't want to drive half an hour each way AND pay $35 to remove them.  In hindsight, I may do that if there is a next time.

The first stitch resulted in 30 minutes of screaming.  Eric and I literally had to hogtie him to the table.  Mind you, when I actually cut the stitch out he didn't make a peep.  It was the whole idea of me cutting them out.  Which I don't get, when he was such a trooper about getting a HUNK of his skin cut off.

The second stitch.  I tried bribing him with watching TV on my phone (which has literally happened zero previous times) and candy at the end.  There was still a lot of screaming.

Hooray for itchies.  AND NOT SCABIES.