Staying a few more days

Today was the day  I was going to post asking for prayers for safety for our trip back home to Brasil.  

As I sit to write this post we should be about an hour away from heading off to Dallas on the first leg of our trip.  

During the night last night those plans changed.  

Why? 

Giovanni woke up yesterday with a rash on one side of his face.  He did this before about a month ago when we were in Dallas.  It lasted a day and it went away.  We assumed this time would be no different.  

Here is what he looked like yesterday:

Here is what he looked like when he woke up this morning:

Pretty, right?

Believe it or not it actually spread even more after taking these photos.  These pictures, as bad looking as they are, really can't show the severity of his hives. 

Me, Benay and my dad just got home after spending almost 7 hours taking care of our sick little guy.

We first took him to a neighborhood clinic to see a Nurse Practitioner.  She said she didn't have the medication to treat him and sent us to a bigger neighborhood clinic.  One that is affiliated with a big hospital in town.  There we paid a nice amount to see a Dr. we like to call Dr. Hands Off.  He poked Giovanni a time or two, did nothing else and said he was fearful that it could be this serious syndrome and sent us to a really good pediatric hospital in downtown Memphis.  We are familiar with this hospital as Garrett stayed there a few days when he was a 6 week old baby. It's a really good hospital. 

God really began to bless us at this hospital. We were told an E.R. doctor would be waiting for us when we got there.   We got Giovanni checked in and then my dad saw a pediatric nurse that our family has known for years.  She immediately took care of our family. 

We then were blessed by the doctor.  He was very knowledgeable, reassuring, encouraging, patient and explained everything to us.  He told us it was probably an allergy and that the guys at the neighborhood clinics are always sending him babies because they just don't want to deal with them in their clinics.  He said he was actually glad because those doctors were lazy and he preferred that they didn't treat little babies. 

He gave Giovanni some medicine and told us he had a 1 in 10,000 chance that his symptoms were the serious syndrome that the clinic doctor mentioned.  He saw no signs or symptoms of the syndrome.  (It's called Stevens-Johnson syndrome if anyone cares) 

He did however tell us to postpone our flight home just so we could know for sure that it isn't Stevens-Johnson syndrome as well as making sure he is completely healed before he gets on the plane.  

From what the E.R. doctor thinks Giovanni is now officially allergic to penicillin. 

Through this very long day God really blessed us.  He blessed us with a great E.R. doctor as well as nurses. 

We were a little concerned about paying for our hospital visit since we only have Brasilian insurance.  When we were leaving we were told if we could pay today they would knock 60% off the price since we have no American insurance. We did. I actually hugged the bill collections person when we left.  A very unexpected, money saving blessing from the Lord. 

We then went straight to the airport to change our tickets. After seeing Giovanni and seeing the hospital information, the worker at American Airlines changed every ticket for free. There wasn't even a discussion about paying for changing the tickets.  One more blessing.  

When we got home the girls told us they had already been in contact with our brothers and sisters in Brasil.  We were told that there is already a prayer vigil planned for Giovanni for God to heal him.  The blessings continue.   

We are thankful that it looks like it was only an allergic reaction and that with medicine he should be healed up in 3-4 days.  

We ask for your prayers for our boy.  As always, thanks in advance. 

As for Giovanni, he is sleeping hard right now.  We think we'll have enough helpers around who will want to pamper him while he is sick.