Mom spotted tiny dots on daughter's legs minutes after outdoor play — she was rushed to hospital the next morning
With bacteria on almost everything and insects of a dozen different kinds roaming everywhere, infections, allergies and even life-threatening diseases can catch us off guard. Children might be more vulnerable to these as their exposure is more prominent with playing outdoors and their young immunities are not yet developed to fight every bacteria. A mom named Beka Setzer revealed that when her daughter Emmalee came back from playing outdoors, she was stunned to find unusual spots all over her legs. As she tried to figure out what might be the cause and investigated further, she was shocked to learn what it was.
Sharing in her Facebook post that was reshared by Love What Matters, the mom issued a caveat to all parents. “I'm putting this out there just a heads up for parents of kids who love to play outside during this time,” she said. The mom recalled the experience her daughter had and how something seemingly insignificant turned out to be something worrisome. “Emmalee was playing outside yesterday, rolling around on the ground while enjoying the sprinkler. After coming inside and lying down for a nap, I just happened to notice tiny little black dots all over her legs, abdomen, arms and armpit area,” she wrote. Initially, Setzer thought they might be seeds or dirt from rolling on the ground.
“It wasn't until I tried brushing them off with my hand that I noticed they weren't coming off and upon much closer inspection, I noticed they were tiny bugs that were attached to her skin,” the mom recalled, per CBS News. Setzer immediately got to picking over “150 minuscule baby ticks off of her.” She bathed Emmalee and washed all the belongings that she came in contact with thoroughly. The woman also administered Bendaryl. To her surprise, the next morning, the girl woke up with “a low-grade fever, these spots on her and a hard, large marble-sized swollen lymph node.” Sharing pictures of the symptoms, the spots turned into reddish and inflamed welts all over her legs.
The mom rushed her to the doctor and she was instantly put on an “aggressive and extended course of antibiotics and antihistamines.” "The biggest thing that resulted from this, was a cyst that formed along the growing and continually swollen lymph node had to be surgically removed as the size and location in her throat became worrisome,” she noted. Virginia Tech entomologist Eric Day noted that there’s “nothing good” about ticks, even more their contact with humans, per Virginia Tech. “When you go outside, enjoy the outdoors, but enjoy it carefully. Be aware that ticks are really kind of everywhere,” he cautioned.
He added, “All ticks are something that we want to avoid having attached to our skin and feeding on us. The deer tick, though, is the exclusive carrier for Lyme disease — a small tick, black legs, sometimes known as the black-legged tick. The issue with the deer tick is just its very small size. It’s very easy to overlook. That’s why often folks don't find them attached and feeding, which is not what you want to have because it’s a chance for them to transmit a disease to you.” Cautioning parents once again, the mom said, “I want to make every parent aware of what these look like so you can be on the lookout. They're not as easy to see as the ticks you're likely looking for on yourself or children.”