As many of you know we have been having troubles with Chasey's skin for months now. He gets these little red bumps that itch him so terribly he'll itch them until they bleed. He's been to the pediatrician, the dermatologist (actually 8 different ones) and an allergist. He's been diagnosed with everything from eczema to bug bites to mollescum (warts) to impetigo. We tried many different ointments and treatments and the only thing that seemed to help was the antihistamine. It finally became clear that he was having some sort of allergic reaction that was causing these bumps. I took him to the allergist to see if they were able to find anything that could be causing this. He was tested for over 20 things and nothing came back positive. You can see his tiny back and how uncomfortable that looks, he was such a rock star. He didn't cry once, the nurse was amazed and said she has 10 year old kids that don't handle the testing as well as Chase did. I took that picture right after she did the test (you wait 20 minutes and if anything is still red than it's considered positive). The big red spot on his lower right back is a place where one of the dermatologists tried to burn off one of these little spots (that was smaller than a pimple). It just urks me to look at his poor little back and see what that spot turned into because of a misdiagnosis. Fortunately it is healing and is almost gone now. While we don't know the cause of these bumps after a few weeks on Zyrtec and Atarax they went away and he doesn't have any more and isn't itchy anymore. What a blessing!
Now for Colby's story...I noticed the week he turned one that he had what appeared to be a lazy eye. I didn't notice it very often but as he's gotten older I've noticed it more and more. I called the eye clinic at Children's and explained what was going on. I thought they'd think I was some overly paranoid and superficial mom but they seemed very concerned and made the next available appointment for Colby. I was curious to see how they would evaluate a 2 year old's eye (especially when they told me it would be a 3 hour appointment!). It was amazing, they did a bunch of tests with toys and had Colby watch Toy Story on a screen that was down a long tunnel. Colby was a champion and did very well. I owe a special thank you to my mom who packed him a bag of lollipops for the appointment, that was truly the lifesaver! After a long evaluation the doctor told us that Colby has exotropia, his left eye drifts out to the side when he is looking at something far away. They tested his vision and it is equal in both eyes meaning the root of the problem is in his eye muscle. 75% of kids with this get worse and some eventually seeing out of the bad eye all together, I had no idea it was so serious! He said we can try to patch his good eye for a few hours each day to see if that helps at all (I knew this was out of the question since Colby is 2 and doesn't even keep sunnies on). So instead we're doing dilating drops in his good eye, it has the same effect as patching. This only cures 30% of kids, the rest end up needing surgery to tighten that eye muscle. So we're hoping it will work. It is very scary to look at your son and see his pupils are unequal (a sign of head injury). Eventhough I know to expect this now it will catch me off guard every now and than! I took these pictures of Colby while we were waiting for his eyes to dilate, he watched the cartoons for about 30 seconds and than went on rearranging the chairs and playing hide and seek with Jason who was able to take a break from work and join us. To anyone in Colorado if your kids need anything I would take them to Children's!
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