ODD PHENOMENON

Zhen does not look like this

Suddenly one morning last week Zhen woke up with swollen, red eyes. He'd been sleeping by the window, with the fan blowing the outside air into his face, so I thought - "Poor child has hay fever!" I sort of shrugged it off, talked to him about hay fever, promised him some of the "allergy" eye drops I have at the office and we carried on. But, by the time we were ready for school, he looked much worse! In fact, his eyes were extremely swollen, as was his face and there was a rash 'round the back of his neck. This was NOT hay fever!

He didn't want to go to school - well, who would! So, he went to work with me and I kept an eye on him. He was not having any other symptoms - no difficulty breathing, or anything else - and the skin problem was not even itchy. Just odd.

I presumed it would go away, but as the day went on, things actually got worse! He was beginning to look really scary - and not like himself at all. That night I rubbed on some Benedryl and immediately his skin was less red where it was applied - but I didn't want to put it around his eyes, obviously. When the following morning there was still no improvement - in fact, he looked worse, I decided that we'd have to visit the Redi-Care.

This was the nicest visit to a Redi-Care ever. No one was there but us! We got in immediately and were seen immediately. The doctor said, "I'll need to give him a couple of innoculations, and ...." That's about all I heard. I braced myself. Zhen does not DO innoculations! Zhen is absolutely out of his mind when he even hears the word "shot", let alone get one. I responded a bit hopelessly, "I hope you have a few strong men on site." We waited a few minutes, and I distracted myself by taking this photo.

Imagine my amazement when following the nurse with the medication, in walks an enormous orderly! This guy could have come directly from the State Prison! Bald, tatooed, BIG. Not smiling.

Ordinarily, at the pediatrician's office, they call the other girls and it takes three or four of us to hold Zhen down for shots. This time the orderly walked around and silently sat down behind Zhen. And he put a hand on Zhen's shoulder. As the nurse approached, I saw Zhen's other hand instinctively move towards his arm, but the orderly's grip tightened just a bit on his shoulder. Zhen's little voice quavered, "Is it going to hurt?" And that was it.

I was SO proud of Zhen for his bravery and told him so. This is the first time he's gotten a shot without going absolutely crazy. I complimented him on his courage and self-control. "It wasn't that, mom." he said in a little voice. "Of course it was courage Zhen. What would you call it?" He answered, "It was what you said mom." "What?" "A strong man."

Well. Whatever works. It looked like progress, for all that.

I was surprised that though we saw improvement rather quickly, Zhen's face is not quite normal even yet. I don't even like to contemplate what caused that odd physical response. Just have to hope it doesn't happen again! (And I don't want one single response that refers to "spider bite". No!)