Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Allergic reactions

I am awake, had a nap and am still feeling sleep deprived and sick to my stomach. I always thought that if we were careful that just maybe Trev would only have a reaction every 5 years or more, not every 2 years. For those of you who are not aware Trev is deathly allergic to peanuts. We don't let him consume anything that may even contain trace amounts of any nuts in it. For that matter no one in our immediate family has had any peanuts in about 2 years now. We have epipens with who ever is with him where ever he goes, we have 3 at his school right now in different locations at the school. Both set of grandparents have their own set of epi-pens. So with all the precautions in the world you would think my theory of every 5 years would be probable. Apparently not.
Tuesday morning I woke groggy as usual (I'm not a morning person!) let Trev and Brie watch cartoons, got in the shower to get ready for work. While I was getting breakfast ready, I heard Trev sneeze, so I got him a zyrtec, and went about finishing getting things together for the morning. So like I always I go back to check with him to make sure that he took his Zytrec, and I finally look at him and noticed that his eyes were swollen, and he had hives on his arms, lifted up his shirt and his stomach and back were just large red welts from neck to waste. Then came the next stage, he said he didn't feel good and that he felt like he was going to throw up. So, because this is par for him leading to him having an anaphalitic response to peanuts we call 911. They check him out and tell us that he should be ok to make it into the pediatrician this morning(this is about 7:45 am) So of course I call until their line is open and some one is there to make an appointment, and we get the first one of the day at 9am. So on the drive there he says he doesn't feel good at all and ends up throwing up everything that is in his stomach, which is nothing but bile because he hadn't even had breakfast yet. Trev was excited because we got to see the Dr Renee, shes young and blond, and from the description he remembers her as the "hot Doctor". She gives us a prescription for steroids, gives him another dose of benadryl, and tells us to call back if he throws up again at all, and told us to watch him carefully, because this could still be a reaction to peanuts, from possible trace from Arby's dinner the night before. So I head off to work after getting the prescription and him settled with Matt to watch him. I call home at lunch to ask how he was doing, and Matt said he looked so much better, that the welts and hives were all but gone, and not to worry. I get home, and yes he is all but hive free and is tired and goes to bed really well. We had instructions to keep benadryl in him routinely, so we went in at 10:30 to give him his dose and he is completely swollen up as a welt again and itching like there is no tomorrow. Matt gave him (from Dr's suggestions) a mildly cold bath to help reduce the itching, and he still is just a huge welt. We decided to let him sleep in our room because we are just not sure with how he is going to do the rest of the night. Not much after, he starts vomiting again, and is still itching an hour later. I tried to call the on call doctor for the pediatrics in the area, and no one called back after the page. From the phone call I'm wondering if the system was broke, it didn't sound right. So I then called my insurance companies nurse line because my stomach won't settle down that something just isn't right. After I talk with the nurse, she makes the comment "your intuition" is saying that this needs to be taken care of right away, I would suggest you follow it, especially because his face is swollen.
So 12:30 at night we head off the ER. (I'm starting to wonder if they might consider naming a future wing after him for his asthmatic/allergic reaction trips there!) So they are in the process of doing the triage with the nurse, and next thing we know he is projectile vomiting in her direction. This must not have been her first situation with this because she completely dodged it! She skips the rest, calls housekeeping, gets him a blanket and takes him back to a room. The doctor shows up in his room pretty darn quick! He looks at him given the situation starts saying to his nurse to get "epi", IV benadryl, a steroid, and pepcid. He talks with us and makes sure that we are ok with that, and basically told him yes, please! This is not Trev's first IV, but the last time he had to have an IV was with his first reaction he was about 18 months. He is scared to death of the thing. The nurse said that could do it, and that he was "neato bandito". Trev said it wasn't that bad after and that it didn't hurt as much as his immunizations shots. He had a running thing to give the nurse a high five every time they had to do something new. The nurse even joked with him about the IV "water" going into him, saying this wasn't the normal way we took water. By 4:30am his swelling is down immensely, not gone by any measure, but at least he wasn't slurring his words any more because his tongue was too swollen. So he is still on steroids till tomorrow and now on a higher dose of benadryl round the clock. In fact he is laying on the couch right now not to far away from me because right now he doesn't want to sleep in his own bed. I think he's still kind of nervous. He looks a lot better! So hopefully tonight goes more smoothly, because I have to work again tomorrow and won't have the option to switch sleeping shifts with my husband tomorrow during the day. Coming down to it we are really feeling that there was some trace amount in his food from Arbys, and because he is so sensitive to react, that this is what it was yet again. I hate seeing him so miserable and wish that he didn't have to deal with this. He is such a sweet endearing little boy! So I count my blessings for modern medicines, good family, and having him still in our lives. Even in his prayers tonight he said he was grateful!
So I'm sorry if this is nothing but a huge long ramble. I am still quite sleepy, and hoping tonight goes better!

Saturday, August 1, 2009

Baptism

As a current events updates, I now have an 8 year old daughter, and a 6 year old son, and still a 3 year old daughter for another 2 months. :) For other big news, Ali was baptized today. It was a great day! I got to see family and enjoy their company, feed them lots of food, and watch them interact. It was sad in that my sister Karen and her family were not able to come because of sick kids, and my sister Kaylene and her family because quite frankly if they could keep flying every where every 2 months for one family occasion or another I would be worried for them. We were fortunate enough to have my Grandma Carma here. It was very nice to see her, and I think she brought some one with her, that still loves her very much.

On that note, let me side track back to my memories of my baptism. You see I have dimples. They are very prominent when I smile or even slightly smile. I hated my dimples growing up. They brought attention to me when I didn't want be noticed. Around that same time frame I remember watching a movie done by Disney, with a title with something to do with "The girl who spelled Freedom" I could be wrong on the title, not entirely important to the story any way. I remembered when I watched that movie that the mom who had dimples when she smiled with her lips curled in, her dimples didn't show (of course in the movie she was choking back tears of pride at the time....) so in my youth, I decided I didn't want my dimples to show for my baptism pictures. *eye roll* ( I wish I had a scanner to show you how the pictures ended up turning out.) So as my sister Karen tries to coax a real smile out of me unsuccessfully, I kept telling her that I was smiling. Well the pictures ended up looking like I was frowning...and low and behold, BOTH dimples were showing anyways!!!
Then on the road trip back home I ended up doing or saying something mean to my sister Kaylene in the car, and she piped in right away to me "Oh! You already have something to repent for!" Oh dear! If you knew me as a child, you could imagine how quiet and upset I was for the next few hours after that. My poor family!!!

White Knuckle Grip

My photo
What striving to keep a grip on life produces.