Kankles

Emily has never been to the Emergency Room in her short life of nearly four years; her brother, however, has now been there twice...once for an extreme cold, and once for Pushki Burns.

How did he ever get Pushki Burns?!?! We've lived here for three years and hiked in-an-out of these forests. I know all about Pushki...I know what it looks like...I know it's affects...I know not to touch it...I know not to get near it. Heck, Emily even knows how to identify it and to stay away!

Ethan, on the other hand, well...he's a toddler, and a little boy. I don't think I need to say much more.

We had a great time on Sunday picking berries at the Buskin River. Most of the plants were already picked over by others, or had berries that weren't quite ripe yet. I think, in total, we collected about 10 berries. My plan was to put them in some jello for the kids...well, that was before Emily spilled the basket in the sand, and there was just no getting those berries clean.

It wasn't a big heart-break for the kids, they really don't like the berries that much. So, oh well...we went on our way. We finished up our day and the rest of the evening was nice.

The following Monday morning the kids went to school and I went off to work. I picked the kids up later that evening. Ethan was rather fussy, but I didn't think anything of it. We sat down to watch a little TV and I noticed that his socks were SEVERELY constraining his ankles and that his calves were swollen. I took his socks off & just thought that perhaps the socks were too small.

When, about an hour later, the swelling and redness didn't subside, that's when i started getting worried. I called my family back home to get their opinion, and we video knocked with the iPhone so that they could see what I was seeing. They were horrified by the state of his legs.

At this point it was already nearly 8pm, and the only doctor available was an ER doctor. So, the kids and I packed it up and went off to the Emergency Room at the Hospital. Once there the doctor said that it was the worst case of Pushki Burns that he had seen and he was extremely glad that I had brought Ethan into the ER. They gave him a loading dose of steroids and a topical cream to get the swelling down and to minimize the pain. (This would explain Ethan's irritability earlier.)

The doctor that was on call at the ER that night was Ethan's regular doctor, so it was really nice to see a happy, familiar face. Dr. Hambliton is my favorite! He has been with us since Ethan was born...through the heart/lung monitors, through the colds, the baby shots, and now...through Pushki Treatments.

Poor Ethan will be on meds for the next week or so, and be required to see a doctor every-other-day to review his progress. The next morning the swelling in his legs had subsided to nearly normal, and the redness has gone away. (The picture taken was from the following morning, after the medication had already kicked in. The previous night those same marks were dark cherry red and severely swollen!)

What a mess!

And, it's not like he was bathing in the Pushki!

From what we've now learned, the plant oils excrete into the water within the forest. What we think happened was that Ethan simply splashed in a forest puddle and there were Pushki Oils in the water which absorbed into his socks and therefore caused his legs to be burned by the plant poison. Strange!

I think we will think twice before going on another nature hike through the forest!