Allergic Reactions

What a week/weekend! I don’t even know how to find a way to simply sum up the week. Let’s start with the fact that this was my first week of ever being a camp “counselor”. I have technically been program staff all summer which is different than being a counselor. As a counselor, I had a cabin of 5 5^th/6^th grade girls. I was super excited about this and it sounded pretty simple. I love kids and only being responsible for 5 didn’t seem too hard. Boy was I in for a shock. Being in charge of these girls reminded me two things. 1) I don’t want daughters and 2) I don’t miss being in 5^th and 6^th grade. These girls were just so up and down and full of drama! They would whine and hate each other than love each other 5 minutes later. They also just did not want to do anything but sit and talk about or to the boys! Let’s start with the quick story of boys. The campers all arrived around 4 on Sunday.  Monday morning 2 of my girls started “dating” these 2 boys. By the afternoon 1 girl had already broken up with her boyfriend, and by the night they were back together. They then once again broke up Tuesday afternoon, which left the boy heartbroken and crying his eyes out. The other girl broke up with her “boyfriend” by Tuesday night as well because on Monday it had caused a friendship to end because of jealousy issues. This was one of many tear fests I had to control.

To make matters worse, Monday I was hanging out with my girls in the grass when all of a sudden my lip felt swollen. I figured I had bumped it and there was nothing to really worry about. I then realized that it had gotten bigger, and figured I should ice it to get the swelling down. After going through 2 bags of ice within an hour, I realized the swelling had not gone down at all, but my lip had actually gotten a lot bigger. I then showed somebody who had seen it earlier, and they were shocked at how much bigger it had gotten. On my way to getting another bag of ice, I ran into Clint who is an EMT and figured I should show him my lip. He took a look, figured I was having an allergic reaction to something, and decided I should take some Benadryl. I did that as well as got another bag of ice, in hopes I would be fine.  2 hours later, not only had the swelling gotten bigger, but it had spread to the other side of my lip and part of my eye. Things were not looking good. We decided to call an ER nurse who told me to just watch out to make sure it didn’t spread to my throat or tongue, and to hype up the benedril and find some day time allergy stuff for the next day. After consuming 3 Benadryl’s figured I would be completely knocked out for the night, got woken up because a sick camper from another cabin needed to sleep in our house because we had an extra bed. At 2 am, the swelling in my lip had gone down, but not gone, but the swelling in my eye had gone up. The next morning, lip finally was getting better, and the eye was about the same. Luckily, after some zurtec, by the afternoon I was back to normal. Things were looking good.

By Wednesday night, I had hit a wall. I got some new swelling in my eye that day, and my girls were just beyond corrupt. They had turned into to terrors and I had a mental breakdown. I was very disappointed in myself for not being able to do the job I was so excited for as well as I could. To make matters worse, after my mental breakdown, 3 of my girls were ABSOLUTLY convinced there was a ghost in their room. After long discussions about ghosts not being real and them especially not being in the room, girls were having their own breakdowns and refusing to sleep. I lost the battle and had to get another staff member to come save me who ended up sleeping in the room with the girls because I had to sleep in the hall way because I had another room with 2 girls in it. Friday finally came, I was no longer swelling in the face, and I felt some relief. Then my work weekend started. 

Friday went extremely well and the group I was working with was full of awesome kids. Although I was dead tired and burnt out, I knew I could get through the weekend easily. Until this morning…

I thought I was done with these ridiculous allergic reactions, but this morning I had big hives all over my head, and one HUGE hive between my hip and thigh. I didn’t even know what to think. Things felt okay until about an hour after waking up realizing my eye was swollen as well. Deciding to give up on anything, I popped another Zurtec and just went about my day. Luckily someone who is here this weekend is a doctor’s assistant and at she said the bumps on my head were fly bites, but then once I informed here about the one on my leg it came down to the conclusion I am breaking out due to stress. It is the only logical thing to think. As of now my head has lost some bumps, and the thigh is exactly the same.  I can only hope that morning brings me a fresh start of being normal. Tomorrow starts the last week of camp. I have a fresh group of 6 or 7 7^th and 8^th grade girls, so I can only pray for the best. I will give you the update on how it goes on Friday.

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