Allergies

Back on December 29th, we were at Greg's office for the first time. While there, Luke needed to "teetee", so we went in his office restroom. Back then, I was still giving one M&M or tiny candy when he went to the restroom, but, alas, I forgot the candy. Greg told me that someone in his office brought some white chocolate fudge for the office that day. So, we gave Luke a tiny, and I mean, TINY piece (maybe a one inch square max). Within 2-3 minutes, I noticed redness around his mouth and a slightly swollen lip. Not thinking too much of it, Greg ran next door to CVS and bought some Bendadryl for him.

There were some other ingredients in the fudge, some cranberries and other tiny pieces of something...I wasn't sure at the time...some kind of nut. (Turns out to be pistachios.) I had to stop and get gas right outside of Greg's office. I told Luke to stick his tongue out at me, and noticed that his tongue was REALLY swollen, too. His lip looked ridiculously big, and he had red splotches all over his little face. He also seemed kind of out-of-it, but I was blaming that on the Benadryl. I called my mom, and she told me that I needed to really watch him, listen to his breathing and possibly take him into the ER. Now, I started getting worried. I called my pediatrician and left a message with his nurse. In the meantime, we were driving back home from Forney (about a 30 minute drive), and Luke fell asleep. Again, I thought it was all the Benadryl making him drowsy. His breathing still seemed okay...he just looked different.

As I pulled into downtown Rockwall (about 5 minutes from home), the phone rang. It was the nurse. Literally as I said, "Hello", Luke woke up vomiting. He was crying and looked horrible. The nurse said that because he was crying, his breathing was okay at the moment, but he needed to be seen by them soon. I just said, "Okay" and hung up the phone. The doctor is 30 minutes away, and I was really, really worried about him at this point. I got home, took him and his vomit-filled seat out of the car, and I notices that he had red splotches and hives ALL OVER HIS BODY. Oh my word...panic set in. I called Greg and my mom, and they both confirmed that we needed to get the the ER ASAP. Mind you, it is lunchtime and neither of my kids had eaten. I called my sweet neighbor Haley, and before I could blink, she was standing at my front door bare-footed in short sleeves in 30-something degree weather ready to take Jack. She later told me that she could sense the panic in my voice and came over immediately. Poor Haley, I practically threw Jack at her with some diapers and said, "He needs to eat!" Thank you, Haley!

After changing Luke's clothes, we headed to the nearest hospital just across the bridge. Greg was so fast getting there, that we pulled up at the same time. I was LIVID when I went inside with Luke whose entire sweet body was swollen, eyes swollen shut and hives head to toe, and they just looked at me and said, "Have a seat and fill out the paperwork." I did my best at filling out all the stinking papers, and Greg finally insisted that we be seen. He was clearly getting worse. Thankfully, his breathing never seemed too labored.

After getting back there, the doctor said that it was clearly an allergic reaction and had the nurse administer an epi-pen. We were shocked when the nurse looked at us with this huge needle and said, "Where do you want me to stick him?". Seriously, isn't that your job to know that, Mr. Nurse? He also stared at us blankly when Luke continued to vomit until I asked, "Is there something I can clean this up with?". After he clearly wasn't getting better and his facial hives were worsening, the doctor ordered him to get an IV. Momma started to freak out a bit...I am so glad that Greg was there to hold it together for Luke. The nurse tried to get a vein a few times, but never was able to. So, he got another epi-pen and a steroid shot. After being in the ER a few hours, Luke really started to show some improvement. Praise the Lord!

When the doctor was discharging us, I asked if we needed an epi-pen prescription in case this should happen again. He said, "Ummmm...no. Kids his age can too easily overdose, so epi-pens aren't prescribed for 2-year-olds." That didn't make much sense to me, but he is a doctor, so I trusted him.

We couldn't get seen by the allergist for a month, but we did have to go to the pediatrician for something else. I mentioned it to our wonderful pediatrician, and he flipped out at the fact that we weren't prescribed an epi-pen. He prescribed one for him, gave us detailed instructions on how to use it, and told us that second anaphylactic reactions are typically worse than the first. Yikes. Yikes. Yikes. Needless to say, we won't be visiting that hospital again!

At the end of February, we went to Dr. Sugerman, an allergist at Medical City Dallas. Again, another flip out at the fact that we weren't initially prescribed an epi-pen. He sarcastically said, "Yeah, why would they want to prescribe that to a child whose life could be saved by it?". He kept using the term "fatal" and "life-threatening" when referring to more potential reactions. So scary. We did some bloodwork. Long story short, he has a SEVERE anyphylactic allergy to pistachios and cashews and other minor allergies to other tree nuts (not peanuts) and environmental allergens (grass, dust mites, etc.)

Here are some sweet pictures from our visit with Dr. Sugerman -

Getting his blood pressure taken:
Daddy's (and Pony's) little man:

Jack was a trooper!



As scary as all of this was and has the potential to be, we can really seen God's protective hand looking back. Once, while flying to Hawaii, he was sitting with my mom, who had a bag of trailmix containing many cashews. He only ate a few of the M&M's in that bag. But, his little eyes were almost swollen shut just from touching something that had cashew residue on it. We didn't know at that time what caused it. We gave him Benadryl, which cleared it up. What if we were over the Pacific Ocean and we gave him an actual cashew? What if he had eaten a handful of pistachios instead of a tiny piece of candy with pistachio shavings in it? What if? What if?... Thank you, Lord, for protecting our sweet Luke!

Update: This has been saved for awhile, but we lost our internet. I think we have it going now! In California last week, Luke had an entire night of throwing up after eating at PF Changs. We didn't feed him anything with nuts (although we almost gave him lettuce wraps...didn't know they had cashews - phew!), but the allergist seems to think that he is so allergic that his digestive system reacted that way just being near the cashews or his food being cooked in the same area with cashews. No more Asian restaurants for us!