Last Thursday, Maggie woke up with a rash all over her face and body. So I made an appointment for her to see a doctor right away to try and figure out what it was. She had been on amoxicillin for her ear infection and I was worried that she has a penicillin allergy, like Luke.

The provider we saw seemed really perplexed by the rash. She said it couldn’t be a penicillin allergy because Maggie wasn’t currently taking the amoxicillin (she’d been off of it for 4 or 5 days at this point). She ended up diagnosing Maggie with hand-foot-mouth disease, even though as she said, “It wasn’t presenting like HFM, they hadn’t seen any other cases of it recently, and it wasn’t really the right time of year for it.”

The provider sent us home with some literature to read and told us to keep her hydrated and away from other kids (since HFM is very contagious). So we cancelled our plans to travel to NY to meet Lydia (my sister’s adorable new baby). After I got home I started looking up HFM and was even more convinced that it was not what was causing Maggie’s rash. She didn’t have any spots in her mouth or on the soles of her feet. She did have two or three little bumps on the palm of one of her hands, but the rash didn’t look the same (HFM looks like tiny blisters).

The next morning the rash had spread even more. She seemed fine, other than being “itchy, itchy, itchy!” After talking to my mom and a nurse friend (whose kids have actually had HFM and it did not look like Maggie’s rash), I decided to take Maggie in to the ER at the local Children’s Hospital to be seen for a second opinion.

As soon as the doctor saw Maggie she said, “That’s not hand-foot-mouth, that looks like a drug allergy.” Yep. Right back to where we started, Maggie is allergic to penicillin. (Apparently you can have a reaction to penicillin up to a month after you’ve stopped taking it.)

Overall it was a very frustrating experience, but now we know for sure. It’s documented in Maggie’s records so next time she needs an antibiotic they won’t give her penicillin. It took another 5 days or so for the rash to completely clear up, but thankfully she’s feeling much better now.

Story time for her animal friends.