Now it's later, and I'm back.

Hi there!

(I think that's how I'll start all my posts - with a hearty Hi There! It's so cheery.)

Well, operation take a child to the doctor went off without a hitch. Well, it was a little hectic, but hitch free. You see, when I went to pick up my son at school they were in the middle of a fire drill. So the class was not in their classroom. And, me being me, I had the time it would take me to pick up my son and get to the doctor's office planned right down to the minute. So when I went into the school and had to hunt down my son during the fire drill, my whole planned down to the minute thing went right out the darned window! Which, really, was no big deal because I always plan in an extra 10 minutes to deal with variables. (What is that you say? I'm Type A? I have no idea what you're talking about.)

Another variable that was thrown into my schedule was when the mom of the little boys I babysit called me and said her oldest boy had a doctor's appointment this morning and she was coming to get him. To which I thought, Uh-Oh. We are at the doctor's, I told her. I told your husband last night that we were going. But, um, I guess he didn't tell you. So she had to come pick up her son for his doctor's appointment at my son's doctor's office. Talk about crazy.

But still - did not throw me off of my schedule. Did not even give me a minor headache. Because I was getting my son fixed (not like he was broken - more like malfunctioning,) and nothing could ruin it for me!

Well, we got to see the doctor after a bordering-on-outrageous wait, and she was like, wow, he looks bad. To which I thought, thank you for saying so. I know it is horrible of me, but I am thankful his skin was worse when I picked him up at school; even worse than when I dropped him off an hour earlier. I am thankful because usually his skin does the whole heal-up-before-going-to-the-doctor's-office thing and then they just kind of look at me like I'm the sort of mother who brings her child in for the slightest of things and thinks the world is going to end unless I get a prescription because we all know that prescriptions heal everything. Because I'm not that sort of mom at all. I'm more the type of mom who lets things get really bad before going into the doctor because I'm, well, I'm just that type of mom. But I digress... The doctor finally saw how inflamed my son's skin gets. He has hives, and itchy spots, and redness, and his nose is stuffed up, and his eyes are red, and he looks horrible.

So finally he was seen in all his glory and the doctor knew we had to do something about it. She first prescribed a 3 day course of steroids to rid his body af all the hives and allergens. Then she prescribed yet another allergy medicine to give to him nightly. It's Singulair, to go along with his nightly dose of Claritin. Claritin is an antihistamine and the Singulair is a somethingorotheriene blocker so the two of them together attack the allergic response in different ways. It's enough to stop his body from manufacturing any sort of allergy-type symptom. So, you know, hopefully he'll still have some fluids in his body and still be able to feel his skin. But we're willing to take the chance. (I jest.) (Kind of.)

She also prescribed a new kind of lotion for his dry skin. It's called Hylira and it's supposed to be a new and improved way of moisturizing. She gave me a sample, and it's kind of like a cross between a gel and a liquid. It's non-greasy and you can't even tell where it is you put it on your skin, it absorbs that quickly and fully. Most importantly, it is fragrance and irritant free and that is what I like to hear when it comes to what I use on my poor son. (But the sample bottle looks eerily like the bottles of a particular personal lubricant/massage oil I've seen. That kind of freaks me out.) The good news is, if he has a prescription lotion, I can drop some off at his school and have them moisturize him. Because regular lotion is evidently not allowed. Crazy, huh. The bad news is, um, I just looked it up online and saw that one bottle costs around $200.00. Yikes. I don't know if that's what it'll cost me because I have yet to pick up the medicine at the pharmacy, but I'm sure hoping it's not that much. I'm hoping very much that it doesn't cost me an arm and a leg. Or even a child. Because I'm going to have to sell one of the children if it does cost that much and I'm not sure if I should sell the child that requires all of this medicine, or if I should sell the other one so at least the medicine I paid that much money for gets used. Quite a quandary.

In summary, I didn't have to stage a sit-in at the doctor's office. I think things will get easier for the boy. And if they don't, we'll be back in two weeks.

(And I'll be in the poor house.)