Our Halloween Adventure

Batman and Minnie Mouse

Every year at church we host a fun night called Candy Zone at Cornerstone. It is a safer alternative to trick or treating, a ton of fun and it is weather proof. Batman hopped in the bat-mobile with Minnie Mouse and off to church we went. The kids loved walking around playing the games, getting balloon animals, going in the jumping house and winning candy. Minnie spent most of the night playing in a ball bit and trying to convince mom to give her as much chocolate into her mouth as humanly possible....that little girl can put the food down. Batman was more concerned with bouncing, eating and running.

After about an hour and a half we hit melt down and headed home. We stopped at Sara's to do a little trick or treating and get even more candy and then it was home for baths and bed time. It was all going smoothly until we took Chris's costume off for him to get in the bath. I looked at his legs and noticed that his left leg was about twice the size of his right one from his thigh to his knee. There was a 5 minute debate on whether or not to call the doctor, and we did. I proceeded to tell the nurse the size of his leg and that the swollen area was red and hot to the touch. The only thing we could think of was that on Monday morning he had had a flu shot. After reading some of the flu shot reactions this was no where on the list of normal reactions. They figured at this point since this was reaction to a medication we needed to talk to the doctor. By about 9:30 the doctor had called me and said she did not like what she heard and to go ahead and take him in. Here we go again...

My first choice of hospitals to go to was Sutter since it is here in town and takes about 2 minutes to get to, but she proceeded to tell me that they had not been thrilled with the doctors there lately. That was good for me to hear though. In the 4, yes I said 4 times we have been there with the kids we have not been super impressed. So I dragged Chris out to bed and headed to ValleyCare in Pleasanton, if our doctor does not trust the Tracy hospital, that is all I needed to hear to drive an extra 20 miles

When we got to the ER we were seen fairly quickly, another nice bonus to this hospital versus Sutter. After some questions and a few doctors looking at it they really could not come to a conclusion so it ended up at it is most likely an infection in the leg and/or allergic reaction to something. I know what some of you are thinking it is a because of the flu shot. They actually ruled that one out. I know there are many people against those shots and think....yes this is why we don't get them. But both of doctors told me that this was not related, it just happened to be in the same leg. The swelling was actually not around the shot area, just below it. So we got some benydryl and antibiotics to get the infection under control. After entertaining all the nurses by shooting them with a plastic syringe filled with water and talking about the deputy that was there with the "bad guy" from Rita....we headed home.

I think the best part of the night was what I received when we check in at the hospital we got a special gift. The nice nurse checking us in handed me a card and said, " Here ya go, next time you guys are here to see us just hand this to us and we will scan him in and have him pre registered with all his info"

Seriously people....do we actually go that much. I guess we do since we qualified for the Rapid Rewards Card at the ER. All is well now and we are about to go in for a follow up with his pediatrician. Just another fun and adventurous night at the Francis house. Oh, and for those keeping count for the year we are at a tie at 1-1 for the year.