Tuesday, June 24, 2008

A Club I Hoped I Would Never Have Join

Last night I joined a club I had hoped never to have to join. The "Parents who have had to give their kids an epi-pen club" That is a long name for a club and I know several wonderful people in the club... but I did not want to join them, but join them I did.

When I went up to bed I could hear Elijah coughing (with his asthma we always listen hard when he is coughing to see if we need to puff him.) When I went in to see him he told me that I needed to puff him. It did not sound like a bad cough and more like a "I have something caught in my throat" kinda cough. I gave him water and tried to get him to sleep.

After a little bit he came into my room and told me again he needed a puff. And while we where talking about it he projectile vomited on me, our bed, himself, the carpet, anything in the area. I quickly moved him into our bathroom (a room with no carpet) and called Mark up to help.

I gave Elijah a bath and Mark started taking the bed apart. Elijah was chipper, happy and most of all talkative. At some point Mark asked me "where those tortilla the ones that had eggs in them?" (at this point my heart stopped... I was sure that they where) I went down stairs as fast as I could to find out and ...yes they where the ones. Elijah had eaten them about 1 and 1/2 hours before (so still in the danger zone).

I called the allergist on call and he wanted me to give Elijah an epi-pen (again my heart stopped, and this time my breathing as well.) Elijah was VERY brave. He even said that the noise made him more scared then the needle.

So off to the hospital for us (me with some Pepto in me to try and stop the snakes/butterfly/what ever you want to call them that where in my tummy.) Elijah was so cute in the car saying things like:

E: Mom why isn't Ada Elizabeth with us. (in a sad voice)

M: (try and breath, how do we get to the hospital, where is the hospital, oh my god what if....., )Why Elijah?

E: I just wish she was here.

and

E: You should not have given me that tortilla. That pokie really hurt.

M: I am so sorry Elijah. Mommy is really upset and I need to think about how to get to the hospital do you think we could talk about happy things?

E: Sure

(a while latter)

E: I guess I should not have eaten that tortilla.

M: (OH my God, I am so sick with worry, where am I going?,...) Remember we where going to talk about something happy?

E: OH yeah, sorry Mom I forgot.

This when on the whole way there.

When Elijah and I got there he had hives everywhere, but not really bad ones, just everywhere. After a couple of trips to the bathroom for me and checking Elijah in, we got Benadryl in him and waited. Luckily they have lots of cool stuff for kids to do, so we read books and colored.

After about 2 hours or so the nice doctor came back in and gave us the OK to go home.

Good things that I learned yesterday:

  1. All our work keeping eggs out of his diet IS for a good reason.
  2. I can give him a epi-pen (and it is NOWHERE near as scary as it seems)
  3. My son is really brave (OK I did know that one, but it is nice to see it every once in a while)
  4. My husband is close to Sainthood for cleaning up that mess

Oh there must be more but for now that is all I got. On the way home we saw a wonderful moon rise. It was orange, mostly full, and reflecting on the lake.

E: Mom we should come out at night more often so we can see the stars and the moon more.

M: Yes Elijah we should.

God I love that kid. If you have kids hug them for me. Thank God we came through that one OK.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Welcome to the Epi Club. I'm glad that it all turned out okay - it's so scary, isn't it? Hugs to you and Elijah.

As for the above comment... I hope it made you feel better to say that. Oh, and bite me. Bite me hard.

Zoë said...

Vicki,

Thank you! I deleted the other comment, as it was just mean! But thank you for the support. It made the mean one not so bad.

Debye said...

You must have been scared to death inside but it sounds like you handled everything remarkably!

I am glad everything worked out well!

Debye

angela said...

How scary! I can only imagine how scary that must have been for you. I've done the whole ER trip with my little one and thankfully Benadryl worked, but hives and swelling lips scare me. I feel sick just thinking about it. We have epi-pens now, and I take them with me everywhere we go. I hope and pray that I never have to use them and I hope and pray that you never have to use them again. It sounds like you stayed calm on the outside, so important, I think, because we can freak out internally as much as we want and it won't scare the kids :o) So I'm giving my girls a big giant hug. Hurray for your hubby, I know that wasn't easy for him, but honestly, and glass-half-full, projectile vomiting may have lessened his reaction since he got a lot of it out of his system. Have a great day.

Zoë said...

Thank you both. It was hard, but you have to do what you have to do, and most of the time you do not know you can until you are faced with it.

Anonymous said...

That sounds soooo scary! Luckily my kids don't have food allergies. I will be horrified when they get stung by a bee fore the 1st time because I am paranoid about that!

Glad he was ok. Also glad one of you was calm LOL!