Children should be height/weight proportionate to their parents

It should be a law. Really. It should be. Children should be height/weight proportionate to their parents. So that when you have to carry them to the car because they're horribly sick, you can actually do it. When you find you can't, and they are frighteningly close to passing out and sliding down the wall, you should be able to pick them up off the floor. You should also not be scared shitless when one of the people you love most in the world is that sick.

Katie came home from an overnight trip to Norman with friends last night not feeling well at all. It was the first day of her cycle, and those are usually difficult, but this was brutal. She was doubled over, crying, and she's not a whiner. I tucked her into the couch with pillows and blankets and a heating pad, gave her two tylenol, and we tried to rest. She woke me at 3:30 this morning saying she'd gotten sick and needed help. I cleaned up, got her changed, decided I'd call the doctor's office first thing as soon as they opened. She's finally agreed with me to talk to the doctor to see if there's anything we can do about the pain associated with her cycles.

As I was settling her back down on the couch, she said her stomach hurt really bad, and she was "itchy." Eh? Itchy? What the hell? She had a slight rash on her arms.

Two hours later, at 5:30, she walked into my room said, "Mom, I feel really weird." I looked up and her whole face was swollen. I sat her down on my bed, checked the rest of her, she was solid hives. What the hell??? OK, ER now. I went to walk her out to the car because at 5'9" to my measly 5'2" carrying her was not in the equation. She stood up, flushed bright red, then dead white, and started to go down to the floor. I propped her up against the wall and yelled for Andy. THAT child sleeps like the dead. He didn't hear me. I let her slide to the floor. She's starting to wheeze. I ran for the phone, smacked his bedroom door with my hand on the way through the house and yelled for him to get up and help me. Called 911, the ambulance was here in minutes.

Two hours later and we're back home. They gave her steroids and Xantax, both for the histamine reaction. We can't figure out what the hell did this. She didn't eat or drink anything she hasn't had a million times before yesterday. No spider bites, or bee stings or anything like that. The only meds she had was Tylenol and she's taken that since she was a baby.

I'm stumped. But my blood pressure's back to normal, I think. Jesus, she scared me bad. Oh yeah, and in the ER, when she finally came around, her only comment was, "Can we go home now? This all seems a little excessive for a rash, Mom." She doesn't remember any of it.