She had ANOTHER spider bite!!
In less than a year, 2 spider bites. I know we live in a wild country with pretty amazing (read awful) bugs, some very poisonous, but most people live all their lives here without ever being bitten by one. Like me, so far.
This poor child. She looked forward to her merit outing at school so much. All the "good" kids that wasn't naughty throughout the year, were taken to this resort for some fun in the sun. I'm sure most of you are wondering, how can a child that's oppositional, defiant, throwing tantrums, trouble controlling frustration and anger, etc., like Boeboe, be one of the rewarded kids. Well, that's the irony of Boeboe. Whenever she doesn't feel completely safe, she won't show her normal character. The one teacher described her as "stoic", and that was a perfect description of her for me. She has about 4 "stages". Firstly, there's the stranger stage. When she's amongst people she doesn't know, or doesn't know well, or doesn't trust enough. Like other kids in the class, teachers, etc. She'll be painfully shy, she won't show any emotion, she won't smile, laugh, talk, react, nothing. She'll listen, she'll look, and she'll do the absolute necessary like doing her schoolwork. Then there's the 2nd stage, which is preserved for small groups of close friends and family. She'll still be very shy and quiet. She'll still not be as happy and dancing and being as loud and talkative as she usually are.
The third stage is reserved for those she loves and trust implicitly, but whose opinion still matters more to her than her being herself. Does this make sense? The only people belonging in this stage, are her grandparents whom she sees regularly. Usually, they sleep over or go on holiday with us, which makes it impossible for Boeboe to completely hide her true self for days on end. So she's opened up in front of them, and hats off to them - they stayed loving and accepting and supporting. Which sets her more at ease, leading to this point where a special stage was created just for them. Other people will come and go in this stage, depending on how much time we spend with them. Like some family we see regularly. But it's usually reserved for the grandparents.
The last stage is of course, being at home with her own family. Her brothers, sister and parents. Here, she can be completely at ease. Completely herself. She can throw tantrums in absolute abandonment. She can scream and rant and get all the frustrations and anger out of her. She can talk about the paranoia, the grandiose feelings, the horrors of her life. She can giggle like a 5-year old and not feel judged. She can jump up and down in true joy and not have a care in the world that someone's watching. She can babble to her heart's contend and laugh when we tell her to be quiet for just 1 minute so that we can get a word in! Such a joy to have at home, pity she can't show that side of her to others.
Thus, in school, she's stoic, emotionless, and the pefectly good kid. The type of child every teacher want in their class. The reason why she completely dissappeared from the teachers' radars. Why her Afrikaans teacher didn't even notice her failing. Why her math teacher didn't realise she doesn't understand, isn't taking anything in, and was under severe pressure.
So as a good, quiet, non-disrupting kid in class, she was invited to the merit-reward outing. And somewhere there, she stepped on or close to a spider, and it bit her in the corner of the nail of her pinky toe. How unlucky can she be!! Fortunately, she complained about extreme pain so much that in the end I realised it wasn't nothing, and gave her an anti-inflammatory which helped a lot. Unfortunately, I only realised we're dealing with something more than just a bumped or "winter" toe by 8pm. She must've been bitten by 11am. By 2pm I had a look (after fetching all the kids from school and giving them lunch) and the toe was slightly red and a tiny little bit of goo in the corner of the nail. By 8pm, there was a small yellow fluid-filled blister. She convinced me that her toe was already hurt the evening before, so I calculated that timewise we've had this for 24hrs, so I thought it okay to wait another 12. She was already in pj's, in bed and sure about her timing.
Afterwards I realised she must've been wrong, and it must've been a spider bite that happened about 11am at the outing at the resort (that's about when the pain started). I should've taken her to the dr that first night. I just put bactroban (antibacterial cream) on, which took care of the angry red look fortunately. And gave more anti-inflammatories.
By next morning, it looked awful. Bigger blister, very swollen. Skin very tight. The dr said it was either a bug that sprayed her with chemicals, causing a chemical burn, or a spider bite. The blister continued to grow in size and spread lower down on the toe for 5 days, so I'm pretty sure it must've been a spider. A burn doesn't spread over 5 days, does it?!
Fortunately, the antibiotics, steroids, steroid-anti-bacterial cream, and anti-inflammatories that was prescribed seemed to have (almost) healed it by now (day 6). She's doing well, and is on the mend. Thank God. She was in so much pain, poor poppit.
And of course, we were on our way to leave on holiday! Fortunately we only went outside the city, not far to drive, so going to the dr didn't held us up too long. We had such a great holiday. Short, but fantastic. We all needed to go away, spend time with family, relax, and forget about the stress of the past months.
Tomorrow, school closes formally. I'm just taking the kids for 5 minutes to pick up report cards. Wish us luck! I'm stressed about Boeboe's! I do think she passed, but still.
On Thursday, we have Monkeyman's cardiologist follow-up. Please pray that his cardiomyopathy have cleared. Please, please, please let it be gone. We've done his blood test last week. He's such a brave little soul. He walked to the chair, sat down, stuck his arm out for them and didn't even make a sound all through it. So different from Boeboe's earlier the morning.
The pead herself drew Boeboe's blood. Like I knew would happen, she was all brave until she had to sit down. She started screaming, pushing our hands away, trying to get away. Thankfully, my husband went along and held her tightly on his lap while I held her arm down. She still screamed, but understood that if she moves that arm, it'll be much, much worse. I told the pead, like the opthalmologist a week earlier, that she's on the emotional level of a 6-7 year old accordingly to her psychologist, and it changed their approach to her immediately. Which worked like an absolute charm. Because their approach of "you're 10, don't be so silly" made her even more oppositional. The moment they lowered their voice, slowed their approach, lessened their expectations, and explained what was expected of her and why, she immediately calmed down and tried her best. Still screaming, still swiping their hands away, but at least she tried. She was less forceful in her behaviour. This made me very thoughtful. How quickly she responded to the drs when they spoke to her like a 6-year old. It saddened me tremendously for various reasons. But, I was also grateful. For them, for the knowledge we had, for the help it provided her.
And her meds are working well! She herself has noticed the change within 24 hrs. It makes her calmer, less angry and less depressed. So far, she loves it! I'm cautiously optimistic, though we're still only on half a dose. But I've definitely noticed a marked difference in her behaviour. I'm not 100% sure though that I like it. I loved my fiesty, over-excited, bouncing, laughing, over-emotional little girl. We've gotten to know her, live with her, for 10 years like this. The pills seems to calm her, but that also made her more introverted. More reflective. More introspective. It's difficult to describe. But it's as if she's showing signs of those stage 2 and 3 of her, within the family unit, instead of stage 4. It's sad, in a way. But, if this will make her happier within herself, let her be who she wants and needs to be, then I'm happy for her. It just seems like it depresses all her emotions, not just the "bad" ones. It seems a bit sad to me. But I guess it's precisely what the meds does, and if that means that she's more level, I can understand her being happy about it. I just miss my overly-excited, all-over-the-place little girl. It certainly hasn't repressed her self-pitying thoughts, hahahaha. She still felt sooooo sorry for herself, being the one to have a 2nd spider bite!!
Part of the end-of-year activities, is always the concerts. Monkeyman had his, and it was awesome! He has grown so much, emotionally, the past year. Last year, we didn't even attend, and he had absolutely no desire to ever participate in something social like that! This year, he not only participated, he did fantastic! We had one wobbly, when he saw the way the kids' faces were painted, he dug his heels in and refused to look like that. But his father was able to coach him into letting the assistant paint his face and then he had a ball. So much so, that he was saddened to think that he won't have another concert with his beloved teachers ever again. Since he's moving school now. He's starting grade R next year at his siblings primary school. I think that's about the equivalent of Kindergarten in some other countries. Sniff sniff. My baby boy is growing up.
Here's some photo's of Boeboe's spider bite, the concert and the kids.
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| Isn't she the most adorable little fairy? I bought the dress for her christening (didn't use the wings, of course) and then decided to have her wear it for Monkeyman's concert. |
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| He was a little cat, and had so much fun! |
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| Me and my youngest 2 |
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| My 4 beautiful children |
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| Our little kitty cat, he loved his tail!! |
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| What a beautiful little boy we got. So precious. |
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| And another beautiful boy. Our eldest. Soon, he'll be a teenager! |
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| Isn't she just too cute for words? Love her to bits!! |
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| Two mischievous little monkeys. :-) To me, they look the most like each other. |
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| Spider Bite. This is on day 3 or 4, if I remember correctly. It started off with a blister about 3mm x 3mm on day 1, which grew over the days, despite the antibiotics and cortisone. I was quite worried! |
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| Taken from the underside. It clearly shows the translucency of the fluid filled blister. Isn't the body's defense mechanism amazing? |
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| Excuse the dirty foot! She quite refused to put it in the bath, until the pain was almost gone. And by then didn't really want a washcloth close to it. I didn't want her to break the skin of the blister, so I didn't argue too much. And this was taken end of the day, which added to the dirt. The white spot is some cortisone cream. |
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| A close up. This was taken on day 6. The colouring had me worried a bit, but I hoped that it was just due to her not washing it properly for almost a week. |
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| Today - Day 7. You can see how wrinkly the blister's skin is. I believe that's a good sign? The pain is gone now, as is the swelling. |
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| Didn't want to end the post with such awful photo's! So here's a beautiful pic of the 2 sisters. |
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