A fable about missing what is right under your nose.
Douwe has had a rash, a very odd rash, since September. It begain, coincidentally enough, when whooping cough hit his school, and there were many warnings about how even vaccinated children could get whooping cough, only they then got a much milder version. The rash was the least of our worries, as he had a cough and was acting, well, listless. So the doc gave him an antibiotic (which he has had before) to which he nevertheless had an immediate and horrible allergic reaction. The couple little spots of rash turned into a conflagration. We stopped the antibiotic. The rash got better but it never went away.
Many things have been tried since. Eliminating the usual suspects from his diet. Changing soaps, both bath and clothes. Eliminating soaps, ditto (loss of bubble bath was taken quite personally). Bedding changes. Changing ventilation and humidity of the room he sleeps in. All kinds of stuff. No effect of any kind.
The family doctor, after four visits, threw up his hands and sent him to a dermatologist. Today. The dermatologist took one look and asked if we had a.....(drum roll please)
Parakeet. Or bird of any kind.
It appears there is some kind of bug which lives on parakeets which does not bother the parakeet and does not bother adults, but to which children often have a bad reaction when bitten. Luckily, it's apparently killable (the bug not the bird) so Nel does not have to choose between grandchild and bird. Pukkie the bird is off to the vet tomorrow.
I tried everything possible, y'all. I thought of everything. Except the stupid bird. I never thought about the bird at all, at all.
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2 comments:
What can I say. Those medical professionals are again "practising" until something (good or bad) happens.
Jeannine's Dad
Hi, Jennifer,
No, it isn't painful. It itches sometimes and sometimes not. Poor pukkie will be banshed tomorrow to the home of Nel's sister and I expect we will spend the weekend washing things with hot water. It's really a sort of mite, but Nel heard the name of the bug which Pukkie supposedly had and started breaking out the Clorox. It translates as "blood louse", ick.
Hi, Dad,
Yes, it will be a perfect waste of house scrubbing if it turns out to be something else entirely. But it does look like he is being bitten by something -- if we had a hairy animal, I would have thought it was fleas. I originally thought it was ant bites. But ants in Holland apparently don't bite, which I think is very civilized of them.
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