What’s new with Erin?
The little girl developed nasty red rashes all over her body last Monday night. This gave us quite a scare because she kept on crying and had difficulty sleeping. We stripped her of her clothing and discovered that the redness was mostly found on her face, neck and tummy. She didn’t have a fever, which was a relief. But just to check, J rang up Health First to help us in determing what was really bothering Erin. They just said that if she didn’t run a temperature, it could be just the heat that’s making her uncomfortable.
But that wasn’t enough for me. I was still worried because it could be an allergic reaction to the milk that she got from me. You see, our dinner had some eggs in them so that could also have been the culprit. And since it might have been an allergy, she could have trouble breathing later on. So, to put our minds in ease, we left home at 12:45 AM to go to The Canberra Hospital.
When we got there, there were quite a number of people waiting to be called. We were informed there was only one doctor on duty to see all six/seven patients. You heard me, just one! And this was for the emergency department, mind you. (It was appalling to know that there is such a huge shortage of skills in a first-world country such as Australia. 
)The nurse though, seeing that infants needed more immediate attention than the rest, took the time to examine Erin. Her impression was that it could be just eczema. She reassured us that it was not meningococcal in nature or anything of that sort. She gave us 2 options — wait for our turn (which was like a 6-7 hour wait) or go home and just see our GP in the morning. Duh! We chose to go home.
We decided to just observe Erin in the meantime. We gave her cooler clothes to wear, lowered the thermostat, and applied moisturizer liberally on all her rashes. In the morning, they all subsided. Thank God!
We saw our GP this morning though, just to get a final diagnosis. And it is confirmed that it is atopic eczema. All because of the chilly weather this season. The heat and milk from me could have triggered the flare-up last Monday. So, we’re being careful these days. We’re also told to stop using harsh soaps (sorry J&J!). The GP also prescribed us a low dose corticosteroid during flare-ups.
Well, it’s no wonder she developed this. I read somewhere that kids whose parents have asthma (J has it), hay fever (I do) and other allergies are susceptible to getting eczema. Poor Erin! Hay naku, I’ll be really glad when this winter season is over. I am sooo looking forward to Spring!
