Today started off amazing, ended with my latest and greatest scare of a lifetime. Since I consider that my favorite animal is a cat, and it has nine lives, I’m going with the theory that I can only take at least 9 of these “episodes”. This would be 3 or maybe 4 I think and 2 of those have been Abby centric. Go figure.
Catherine and Billy’s wedding was awesome and the girls had a blast … until … “the cookie”. Abby ate a cookie with pecans in it. That’s ok, we said. She’s allergic to walnuts. Walnuts = tree nuts which are the next most allergic nut to … pecans. We know this now, thanks to the rest of our day.
Abby began to complain her tummy hurt and she looked terrible, but we didn’t know if it was related to the nuts (hoped not) or the fact that she’d eaten a butt load of sugar.
When her wedding lunch came back up, we knew it was the nuts, but she bounced back and we figured all was well with the world again.
An hour later, down she came in from outside, covered in hives. Thanks to some quick thinking, by a fellow allergy sufferer, we already had two 50mg tablets of benydryl that we could break into 25mg bits and sneak into some juice to get into her.
Then she starts coughing and I start to worry. A quick call to our fabulous pediatrician and we were told to hurry, straight away, to the pharmacy and get Zyrtec (1 chewable tablet) and an ADDITIONAL 25 mg of Benydryl in her and then wait 30 minutes and if it’s not better to CALL 911. < -- yes, those were her words to me on the phone. To actually call 911. I got Abby and Emily in the van and out of the parking lot in under 5 minutes. We made it to Rite-Aide in another 10 minutes and in I ran, with the girls in tow, Abby coughing her way through the store. It took me longer than it should have to find the Zyrtec and the Benadryl, but I did and all but ran to the front counter, opening the packages as I dumped them onto the couner. I couldn't get the stupid Zyrtec tablet open because my hands were shaking so bad and the cashier did it for me. I hadn't even paid at that point. That's how amazingly nice she was and patient with the freaking out Mom. That gave us a 30 minute 'wait' window. Ron had a great suggestion -- let's drive to the Apex ER and wait through our wait in the parking lot. The drive took 15 minutes and we sat outside in the nice evening sunshine for another 15. The WakeMed Police even came up and asked if we were okay and we explained the problem. He just told us to take our time. At our 30-minute point Ron and I both checked Abby's 'hives' status and neither of us was comfortable with leaving, but didn't think they looked worse. Definitely not worse, but not convinced. So we decided to stay and wait another 15. During this time, Joseph was bored and complained only a few times (fewer than I expected). We even told him he could walk home if he wanted. Emily played on my nearly-battery-dead iphone (tic tac toe with me mostly) until we checked Abby again. We still weren't convinced, but it did look like it had gotten better. So we stayed for another 15 minutes while she slowly got more and more tired, her eyes drooped as her cough subsided and the red became pink. Then, we decided to go home. She fell asleep in the car on the 5 minute trip and has been asleep ever since with us keeping an eye on her and checking her torso for a recurrence. She's not coughing anymore and her breathing is regular. I turn my head every minute or so to make sure that her pink blanket moves up then down, up ... then down again. It's amazing what a simple little food can do to a body and how vigilant we're going to have to be. Tree nuts are OUT in our house. If it's not a peanut ... it cannot come through our doors. Emily, on the other hand, we've avoided letting her have any of the foods Abby has, but she ate 4 of the same *1* cookie Abby ate with absolutely no reaction. So I'm sure this is an Abby exclusive issue. We are now a part of that growing number of allergy-families that have to watch our children and what they eat more than just saying 'eat healthy'. It could even become a life and death situation ... absolutely no tree nuts. Ever. I will meet with her pediatrician to setup an Epipen "plan" this week but at the very least, Benadryl and Zyrtec will remain staples in our house, in our cars, when we go out, etc.... on the 'off' chance.