Richard is not running a fever and there’s no vomiting or diarrhea. His face isn’t swollen. Neither is his tongue or throat (or I wouldn’t be typing this right now). I have asked him about 20 times if he wants me to call the doctor but he keeps saying no. Once we arrived at our new campground today (somewhere in Timbuktu, Pennsylvania), he took a cool shower and I made him a nice cool spot on the bed with a fan to his side. I also gave him my lap desk so he can work if he wants. No cable TV here so he can either work, surf the ‘Net…or take a nap. He’s doing the latter right now.

Trying to figure out what caused it. When you’re on the road, you’re exposed to all kinds of new stuff.

Here’s new stuff he’s been exposed to in the past 48 hours:

MONDAY:
1. New campground pool. Loads of chemicals and heaven knows what kind of bodily excretions. Eeewww!!!
2. Campground pizza. Yummy…but ingredients unknown.

TUESDAY:
1. More swimming – same pool
2. Brand new bottle of sunscreen (used by Max and Mason also – no reaction by them…not that that means anything)
3. Cherry red slush drink from campground cafe (probably contains more chemicals than water)
4. New green tea peach diet Snapple

WEDNESDAY at 4:00 a.m. is when he woke me up and asked me if I could see what was itching.

Not much itching now but the burning under his arms is bothering him. I looked and he’s scratched himself pretty good under there. I dug through all the cabinets, the first aid kit, and an extra backpack of toiletries we have on board and found a brand new tube of Hydrocortisone. He was happy to see that.

If I had a tow vehicle, I’d probably drag him to a clinic but he’s adamant. He doesn’t get freaked out about medical stuff like I do. I’d also go buy adult strength Benadryl. But, we’re stuck with what we have for now.

We do have a Scooter on the back of the RV that goes 50 mph. Richard had it ramped up so you can drive it on main roads if you need to. Problem is…I couldn’t get it off the doohickey on the back by myself if I tried though I’m sure I could get a fellow camper here to help. Even if I could, I’ve never driven the thing before.

If he gets worse, I know how to dial 9-1-1 and, yes, I already put the campground address and phone number near my phone just in case. But, I’m thinking it’s just a bad case of hives and if he were going to start having trouble breathing, that would have started hours ago. My imagination won’t give it a rest until he starts turning a corner, though. We’ve had several emergency room trips on the road in the past so one more wouldn’t be terribly out of the ordinary (sigh…).

Have to go cook dinner. Don’t worry. I’m only feeding him stuff he’s eaten many times before. I’m also making him drink tons of water to flush whatever the allergen is out of his system.

UPDATE: My sister called. She was at the campground with us last night. She has an itchy, red raised spot on her thigh, the size of a dime. She thinks it’s poison ivy. We’ll see. They both drank some of that peach tea, and they both swam in the pool (we all did) and Autumn drank some cherry slush drink today. Mason did, too, but he’s clean. Just checked him. All of us swam but Max, Mason and I are fine. Of course, different people have reactions to different things. More updates later, as spots develop…

ANOTHER UPDATE: It was a long shot but I walked down to the campground store with Max and Mason and they had individual packets of Benadryl for sale! I bought three packets, enough for the next 12 hours. Richard was very happy to hear that when we got back. I won’t let him take any for the next two hours, though, because the kids’ dose won’t wear off until 7:30.

Max and Mason are happy because I bought them each a small toy (since they’re stuck at the RV all night – no pool and no park). Max picked out a cap gun…but we didn’t buy any caps. I’m not interested in torturing myself and everyone around our RV, too. Mason picked out a toy car that is towing a toy RV. Um, I think he has four toy RVs now.

UPDATE: 7:10 p.m. – He’s up from his nap and the hives are definitely lighter than they were earlier. He thinks it’s because he’s not as hot as he was when we arrived this afternoon. That may be the case but they also haven’t spread further down his legs or to his face (seems to have stopped at his knees and upper neck for now). I’m about to give him his dose of Benadryl for grown-ups.

UPDATE: 11:45 p.m. – It is still spreading, down to Richard’s feet on the front of his legs, but not past the backs of his knees in the back. It’s spread more to his palms but not up to his face or even the upper part of the back of his neck. Considering it spread so quickly this morning to almost his entire body within just a few hours, the hives have really slowed down.

He has lots of broken blood vessels under his skin where he was scratching under his arms and also behind his knees and in the inside of his elbows, where the bends of the skin are. Those areas are pretty startling.

But, the “old hives” (the ones he got this morning and early this afternoon) are definitely lighter than the new hives so his body is fighting it pretty well.

Other than the itching/burning, he seems to feel just fine. I think it’s more of an inconvenience for him while it’s been an afternoon and evening full of fretting and hand-wringing for me.

Mason couldn’t get his floaties on fast enough and Max was splashing with glee. There weren’t too many people there so it was very pleasant. Richard swam with Mason while Max and I went down the water slide over and over and over again. It was SOOOOO much fun! There were 60 steps to the slides. Yes, I counted!

I more than worked off that huge honey baked ham sandwich I chowed on yesterday afternoon.

Mason got cold after awhile and started shivering so we dried off and came back to the RV. We put on dry clothes and Richard picked up pizza for dinner, which is made on-site here. It was really good!

After dinner, we went for a walk. There was karaoke at the the pavilion. It’s Christmas in July here and some people had up Christmas decorations and lights. There were lots of kids at the playground and Max and Mason had a great time. Mason is getting more independent. He’s able to crawl up on the playground equipment and slide down the slides by himself…without falling off. One little boy who wasn’t much older than Mason was helping Mason at times. It was very sweet. Once again, as soon as the sun set just enough, he fireflies emerged. One little boy smashed one between his hands, right in front of his parents. They said nothing…so I did. I told him fireflies are very special, that they’re magic, and should be treated with gentleness and love. I told him I believe they’re fairies. I said this right in front of his parents and they were smart enough not to say anything to me because, boy oh boy, would I have let them have it.

I guess what I said worked because the boy brought me a new firefly a few minutes later and showed me how gentle he was with it.

Let me preface this next part by saying that I have nothing against people with tattoos. I would never get a tattoo myself but I know people who have tattoos and they are very nice people. Now that I have (perhaps unsuccessfully) protected myself from an onslaught of tattoo-wearers and supporters, I will continue.

Sometimes, girls have tattoos that, well, just aren’t something their mothers probably approve of. We were at the water park at this campground today and there was a woman in a bikini in line in front of us with a tattoo just above her bikini line (butt cheeks). The tattoos was, shall I say, adult in nature. I saw Max staring at it, not because he is into girls yet (thank you, Lord) but because he is very into graffiti, street art, tattoos and other forms of self-expressive artwork.

I leaned down to him and whispered, “That’s called a Tramp Stamp.”

Still staring, he whispered back behind his hand, “Mommy, what’s a Tramp Stamp?”

I replied, with a wink, “That might mean she’s not a very nice girl…if you know what I mean.”

He paused, looking puzzled for a moment, and then said, “You mean she doesn’t always say thank you?”

On our way down we passed through Maryland, of course, and I must say they have the most well-thought-out rest areas I’ve ever seen.

First off, they are built in the center of the freeway, versus being build on each side of the freeway. So one facility can service both directions of traffic rather than having two facilities.

Second, the fuel station is the first thing you encounter – and it is both diesel and gas, then you get to the parking. Most all others start with the parking lots and split the traffic into different lots for trucks and cars. That then later leads to the diesel pumps for the trucks and gasoline for the cars. The problem that creates for RVers like us is we are large like a truck, so we need the parking of the truck lot, but we use gasoline. So if we take the truck option, we’re stuck with diesel pumps. If we take the car option, we run the real risk of not finding ample or easy parking.

But with the Maryland rest area, that is a mute point because we can fuel first, then park in the truck parking.

The food was very good too. Not the usual burger or pizza fare (though they did have that as an option). Angie had the seafood sampler and I had veggie crab chowder with hush puppies. Max had chicken nuggets (of course) and Mason has just discovered french fries. Plenty of shaded outdoor seating too.

If you find yourself north of Baltimore on I-95, definitely stop at The Maryland House rest area.