Remember this?
I’m pretty sure this is going to be my son. After the past two weeks, I don’t know what to do with him. He has gone into anaphylaxis twice. The first time was a narrow-miss, and I’m thoroughly convinced God intervened that day. We went to church, and came home after a quick run to HyVee. We had a lunch of frozen DiGorno, and laid Parker down for his afternoon nap. The plan was to take him over to Grandma & Grandpa’s to hang out while we took the older girls to see Avatar in 3d.
About 20 minutes into his nap, Ryan heard him crying. He went up to check on him, which is odd. Usually, we’d let him try to fall back asleep on his own, and would give it a few minutes before we went after him. Ryan brought Parker down, and hollered at me to come & look at this. Annoyed, I asked what he wanted, and he repeated that I needed to come to him. I took one look at Parker & flipped.
His face was unrecognizable. His eyes were swollen shut. He had hives from the top of his head, down to his toes. He was flushed solidly. His lips were puffy and blue-ish. And he was hardly breathing. In fact, after Ryan took him out of his crib, he didn’t cry for another 15 minutes. I called 911, thinking he was just having a bad case of hives. They sent the ambulance out, and I was holding on the phone with dispatch when I noticed he was taking ragged, shallow breaths.
We sent the girls to the front porch, to keep them out of the way (and from seeing Parker’s condition & terrifying them). They yelled that the ambulance was there, and the paramedic ran into our living room. He took a single, 3 second look at him, and said “I’m not stabilizing. We’re going now.”
And into the ambulance I went, following my baby boy who was wearing nothing but a diaper. I was carrying my shoes, yelling instructions back at the girls & Ryan. The neighbors were all gathered around, offering assistance with the girls. We took off before the doors were even completely shut.
The paramedic (Brian) tried to get the history from me, and all he got was my hysterical bawling & blubbering. He managed to get out of me the basics, and proceeded to give Parker a couple different injections of life-saving liquid. Epinephrine, I think.
We got to the hospital, and they rushed him into a room that was already occupied by what looked like a 20-something guy with a broken bone. They pulled the ever-trusty curtain divider out to shield this poor guy from my sons demise. I’m sure that it helped to minimize the impact from Parker’s shrieks of pain as they tried to get an IV into him, gave him a couple more shots, and drew some blood. Right.
They couldn’t get an IV into him, so he had an intraosseous infusion put in. Read: Drill. Bone. IV.
What a fun trip. We stayed the night in the hospital with him, and watched as his IV (in his knee) made his leg plump up as it leaked. They removed it, but his leg remained abnormally large, more like our 6 year olds leg than a 16 month olds. He was released the next morning, and we had an appointment set for the allergy doctor.
The following Saturday, 6 days later…
We made a meal-in-a-box junky thing for dinner and settled down to watch Colonial House. Parker ate up his bowl of chicken dumplings, and started to fuss. Not thinking, I got him a second bowl, and started feeding him bites. He kept fussing, and I sat next to his booster chair. Not even 5 minutes after we started eating, I saw three hives on his chin. I looked at Ryan, told him to grab his Epi-Pen, and looked back at Parker to see another smattering of hives, and his face turning red.
911 again. Same paramedic, same ER doc, same scenario, only this time they were able to get a regular IV going. We were there for just a few hours that time, and I didn’t have to jab the Epi-Pen into his leg. (Thank God!)
He went to the allergist this week, and was tested for soy. It came up negative. We are leaning towards getting a second opinion from an out of town allergist, but haven’t yet.So we have no idea what he is allergic to, and no idea when he might become anaphylactic again. Awesome, I know.
Oh, one more thing. I took a break from the hospital during his overnight stay to run home & get toys, clothes, and a diaper bag. I called up Ryan’s grandparents and asked them to keep our dog for the night. I got the gear gathered, and put our dogs kennel into the front seat of our Mustang. About halfway there, he pees all over his bed, and the kennel tilts backwards, so it starts running towards the seat. As I tried to pull over, he threw up all over the other half. I’m already on edge from Parker, and then the dog & his bodily fluids. I seriously considered just shoving his kennel out at the corner, but I figured an Grabber Orange Mustang would be easy to track down, so I called my wonderful mother in law, and dropped him off there, where she gave him a bath & he cuddled up to my father in law all night.
Sheesh.
Hello, my name is MOM! 