He immediately told Doug that he had a boo boo, and Doug looked at his foot, kissed it better and thought that everything was ok. There was no sign of any issue, so Doug assumed that he stubbed his toe. A minute or two later he told me that he had a boo boo too. Doug heard this and told me that he had already looked at it and kissed it better. I too looked at Andrew's foot and did not see anything that would be cause for alarm. At this point, Andrew was sobbing. Uncontrollable sobbing and crying. Doug and I were both stunned because we didn't see anything wrong with his foot at all and Andrew is normally pretty good about dealing with pain once he has had a hug and kiss from mommy and daddy.
After 15 minutes of non-stop crying and me looking at his foot in vein, I put him in the shower thinking that I could wash off whatever was bothering him. The water seemed to help a bit, but Andrew was still sobbing. At this point his left leg started to get red like he was having an allergic reaction to something, so we immediately called the doctor to see what to do and I gave him some Benadryl. While we were waiting for the doctor to call back, Doug and I went outside to see if he could have stepped on something like a bee or wasp (even though we didn't see any sort of puncture wound). Doug didn't see anything, but I immediately noticed an innocent looking fluffy caterpillar right in the middle of the entryway leading up to our house (Andrew was in my arms, naked wrapped in a towel. I took him outside so he could show me where he got his boo boo. He was not particularly helpful since I do not think he knew what hurt him). We weren't sure what to make of the caterpillar, so we went inside just in time for the doctor to call back. Andrew was still crying uncontrollably -- all he wanted was for me to hold him while he writhed in pain and it killed me that nothing that I could say or do was making him feel any better. Meanwhile, Doug talked to the doctor who suggested putting ice on the swollen area and told us that as long as Andrew's breathing was normal, we did not need to take him to the ER. Doug mentioned that caterpillar to the doctor, and he said that there are caterpillars that can give very painful stings. Ding, ding, ding!
That was all of the information we needed to get online and find out everything that we needed to know about what turned out to be a puss caterpillar. To quote www.bugsinthenews.com , "The puss caterpillar is one of more than 50 types of caterpillars found in the U. S. that are capable of stinging. Of these, the puss caterpillar is considered to be near the top of the list in terms of the severity of its sting." Further, "The larval stage of this insect is a small, wooly, pussycat-appearing caterpillar covered with rows of long spines that look like fine, soft, cuddly hairs. Because they appear to be small, innocuous pieces of fluff, children and adults alike are led to pick them up and play with them, usually with immediate, extremely painful results. The spines, hidden among the hairs, are hollow, and release a toxin of unknown chemical composition that produces a skin lesion."
So, we were finally able to determine what was causing his pain (and he had already been pointing to where the pain was originating). Unfortunately, there is not a simple cure for these stings, so all we could do was hold him while he cried and do our best to comfort him. Once we figured out what happened I was able to explain to Andrew what happened, how long it was going to hurt, etc. This seemed to provide some comfort, and after 1 hour + of sobbing, he calmed down to the point he just fell asleep in my arms. He cried himself to sleep!
Sure enough, several, hours later, I looked at the bottom of his foot and at the top of the bottom of his foot and between his second and third toes you could see the red lesions that the website described. Thankfully, when he woke up (we let him sleep on the couch, which was probably not a good idea since he didn't get a great nap and ended up being grouchy later) he immediately told us that his foot was feeling better. Thank God!
I felt so helpless that I could not make my sweet boy better, and worse yet, I felt so bad that he was telling us over and over again where it hurt and it took us a good 25 minutes to figure out what happened. Again, what would we have done without the internet?!?
Needless to say, there is a new rule at our house (which he broke this evening!) about wearing shoes outside!
Here is an exaple photo of the offending creature (which Douglas promptly killed) and of the resulting lesion (taken from the same website). Here is my PSA: don't EVER touch a fluffy caterpillar! I can only imagine how much worse it would have been had Andrew played with the caterpillar. His pain was from accidentally stepping on one!
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