Well, our new year started out with a bang. But not the good kind of bang. Remind me to never ever complain about a Christmas cold again. That was nothing compared to what we found New Year's Day. In fact, I am just now at a point where I can really write about everything. I needed this entire week to feel normal again...to be confident that our little guy really was feeling better and that things were finally back to normal.
We work up New Year's Day to this:
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| Hives. |
Hives. Everywhere. From head to toe. His poor little eye was practically swollen shut and he didn't look like himself. He had slept great though and was playing in his Pack 'n Play that morning before I went in and got him. It took me completely by surprise. Oh, and did I mention we were at Bald Head? On an island? An island that is only accessible by ferry? Right. Thankfully, as bad as he looked, he was not having any trouble breathing. We knew it must be an allergic reaction to something, but had no idea what. I hadn't fed him anything out of the ordinary and all of his clothes/linens, etc were things we had brought from home. It didn't matter. We knew we needed to take our little guy to an emergency room...and there isn't one on the island. So literally, in less than 30 minutes, we got up, put on clothes, fed Fisher, packed Henry's diaper bag, and headed out to catch the ferry off the island. We left Fisher and everything else at the beach house. What else were we going to do? It was so awkward having to take Henry on the ferry looking like that. Of course everyone is staring and you feel like the worst parent in the world. We did get a few sympathetic comments from other mothers who shared their stories of times that one of their children had a similar reaction, but for the most part, we just had to sit there nervously, holding our sweet boy and praying things wouldn't get worse for him. We actually debated calling an ambulance and having them meet us at the ferry landing, but he wasn't having any trouble breathing and seemed to be doing ok despite all appearances so we decided against it. In the end, I am glad we did.
We made it off the ferry and to the little hospital in Southport. Thankfully, it is just a few minutes up the road from the ferry landing, and there was no one else in the ER, so they took us almost immediately. The nurse agreed that it as most certainly an allergic reaction and then asked me if he was taking any antibiotics. Turns out that antibiotics are the #1 thing that causes reactions like this in children under 1 (according to her, anyways). Well, he'd been taking amoxicillin for six days at this point for the aforementioned ear infection he contracted over Christmas. No more amoxicillin for our little man. No more of any drug with "cillin" in fact. Even though he'd had it once before with no problems, apparently it can build up in your system and when your body hits a certain threshold, it just reacts. Also turns out that the husband is allergic to amoxicillin too. Good to know.
His breathing was good, he wasn't running a fever and his oxygen saturation levels in his body were good, so we were very very thankful for all of that. They gave him a dose of baby Prenedsone and Benedryl, and then we had to wait. The nurses, PA, and doctor were all super nice and the little room we were in had a TV, so that helped pass the time. Poor Henry was tired, but wouldn't sleep and just clearly didn't feel well, so it was a long couple of hours, but we managed.
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| In the hospital in Southport. |
They'd come in and check on us every little bit, but they really wanted to see the medicine working before they released us. I was glad for that. As we were waiting, Matt made arrangements for his mom to start driving from home to meet us halfway. Matt still had to go back to the island to clean, pack up all of our stuff and get Fisher. He wanted Henry and I to get home as soon as possible.
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| Finally fell asleep on dad. |
We were finally released and given two prescriptions for the Prenedsone and Benedryl. I've never been so glad to make it back home. Henry did perk up a little and play with his toys that afternoon, but he still looked so bad. A visit to our pediatrician the next morning confirmed that it was likely an allergic reaction to amoxicillin and he agreed that we stick with the medicines the ER gave us.
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| He didn't even look like himself, the hives and swelling were so bad. |
Oh, our little guy was miserable the next few days. Wednesday night was a terrible night. He couldn't sleep - I really think the Benedryl made him jumpy and antsy. Also, his legs were twitching...scared me a lot. He'd start to fall asleep and then his leg would twitch and he'd wake himself up. We spent the night in the rocking chair, him laying on my chest, waking and sleeping. It was awful. Thursday morning his face looked better, but his hands and feet were extremely swollen. The hives had settled there and it wasn't pretty...or comfortable for him. He also started itching. Poor little thing. It was awful. It's so terrible to see him like that and not be able to do anything more for him.
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| Breaks my heart. |
I took him back to the doctor on Thursday morning because we'd had such a bad night. Unfortunately, our normal doctor was on-call at the hospital, so we had to see someone different. He basically told me just to be patient and keep going with what we were doing. That wasn't really what I wanted to hear, but he was probably right. I did cut back on the doses of Benedryl I was giving him though. I know it makes most people sleepy, but I was quite certain it was having the opposite effect on Henry.
Finally, Friday afternoon, I began to see noticeable improvement.
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| Improvement, finally! |
Thankfully, things continued to get better and he had a good day Saturday and a great day Sunday.
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| Looking like my old self again! |
Just thinking back through all of it and looking at these pictures breaks my heart all over again for him. In the grand scheme of things it really did "look worse than it was," and I am very thankful that it never affected his breathing. I can't even begin to imagine that. It really wasn't a worst-case scenario by a long shot, but it sure was the hardest thing we've been through and one of the scariest. You'd never know he was sick now though...he's back to his normal self, playing, laughing and moving ALL OVER THE PLACE. Our boy does not sit still. I'm just glad we're on the other side of it all. There will be no more "cillin" drugs in his future, that's for sure!
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