Friday morning I wake-up in the 4:00 hour and lay in bed till the 5:00 hour, when I can no longer take it anymore and climb out to put on the kettle. Somehow the first few days of Daylight Saving Time leave me incredibly groggy until my internal alarm kicks-in and instead of springing forward one hour, my body overcompensates and springs backward two.
So I’m on the couch waking-up with my warm cup of joe and decide it’s so early, I’ll watch this super funny and informative Trevor Noah video on YouTube about the history of the filibuster. After you’re done razzing me, you’ll thank me later. So I’m sitting there with just the glow of my iPad illuminating my face when this silent, puffy white baby hand comes out of the darkness and glides in front of my screen. My heart is racing again just remembering it. I most certainly jumped. We’re not sure if I screamed. I had ear buds in so my memory is just silent terror.
I recover and have the wherewith-all to ask Jake what’s wrong. Why is he up this early scaring the filibuster out of me? And he says his legs are itching like crazy and he has hives. I take him into the dark kitchen and the poor child is covered. He looks like a globe but where all the oceans are angry and red. I scramble around and find some children’s Benadryl and it seems to make a difference.
Fortunately it’s Friday-zoom-school-for-a-minute day and therefore the most convenient day for a non-life-threatening emergency. Unfortunately, the second and third doses of Benadryl don’t seem to be working and my war chest of medicinal itch inhibitors is declared ineffective. Side note: It appears if you were to analyze my medicine cabinet you would come to the very strong conclusion that I am most frequently afflicted by various types of itchy skin ailments.
Jacob wakes-up Saturday morning and the problem is worse. His hands are covered and he tells his dad that his “eyebrows feel droopy.” I look at him and his eyes are definitely puffy and the rash is now on his face. It’s Med Stop time.
We luck out and they let us in almost right away. We know Jake’s had hives before because all of our hive medicine has been eaten up and we remember that one time where he got into the doTERRA cinnamon essential oil Aunt Laurie gave James to rub on the bottoms of his feet to protect him from evil spirits and Jacob rubbed it on his body and was possessed by evil spirits. There were definitely some times when we fed Baby Jacob some random cheese and he would break-out in a rash around his mouth. We think there was another full body experience, but no one can remember and so today my blog becomes our EHR, Electronic Health Record. Totally PCI compliant.
We get a prescription at CVS that I keep calling hydroxychloroquine until I remember that’s that crazy drug previously sold via Twitter. Well, it’s hydrox-something and Jake washes down two of the little pills in the parking lot. Some Sprite and our first Hawaiian pizza home delivery ever, and Jake is reborn.
In any event, like most hives, they are generally considered a mystery. Maybe it’s the fact that our oak trees are literally blooming yellow weeping willow like flowers which we’ve never, ever seen before and could be pandemic-induced, or occur only in years where winter rains lasted exactly three days and then it was spring. Or maybe it was the sloppy joe’s spice packet, even though he’s had that before. Or maybe it was the jar of Prego Creamy Vodka spaghetti sauce I mixed the spice packet with.
Personally, I’m going with vodka. Nothing like a miserable skin burning rash for days to keep a twelve-year-old far away from the liquor cabinet.