11.02.2009

the one where ben rides in an ambulance.

got a phone call a little after noon. ben has hives. what do you want us to do? uh, i freaked. call nick! so nick tells daycare to go ahead and call the ambulance since they say his face is swollen, he has hives to his face and body.
neither one of us were expecting an allergic reaction four days after starting antibiotics. but apparently, this is common place in kids. ah, the joys of parenthood. always something. always learning.
leave work. get to er and tell them i'm here for ben. the 7 mo old coming from daycare with hives. uh, there's no ben here. and they haven't called it in from the ambulance. what? it's almost 30 minutes after the original phone call. so i call daycare and yup. they're in the parking lot. getting ben situated, will be on their way shortly. aunt laura is keeping him company. ;o)
nick meets me there and we chill in the ambulance bay. dude, was it nice out or what? anyway.
the ambulance pulls in and we go through the er. i tell the lady i'm back and my kid is coming in now. she sends us back. nick goes to meet the ambulance while i deal with fun insurance stuff. then i hear them right outside the door. keep thinking to myself, why are they here if he's have an allergic reaction? shouldn't they be giving him something. finally the little old lady finished taking my info and i walk out to the nurses station and here's mister ben chilling in his car seat like nothing is wrong.
he has a killer hive on his right elbow. see a little bit of a splotch from where there was one on his thigh. apparently, they were all over his face and resolved on their own. strange.
the triage nurse keeps asking why the ambulance and even the emt's were like he did have hives and facial swelling. nurse gives him the once over and sends us to a different waiting area. i decide to take off his onesie and find these lovelies...




not hives. just strange rash. by his right shoulder and ear too... strange.
we chill in the waiting area for quite some time. ben is awesome. just a bit fussy. we fix that with a bottle and he's mister happy and observant.
i told nick to take some pictures. why  not, right? i'm sure the staff thinks we are nuts. whatever. i don't care.
cheese...


the rash is resolving to his shoulder. can see a bit of red on his ear...
 

so we wait some more. then the doc comes over and checks him out. says it is an amoxicillin reaction. great. our kid is allergic to penicillin. sigh. they give him some kiddie steroids by mouth. boy that was fun and we wait some more. finally get ben to take a nap and they discharge us.
yay. until we go to put him in his carseat and he has three tiny hives on his right cheek/jaw line. um, i thought he got meds for this? what is going on? ask the nurse to send the doc back.
doc says that it could just be sensitivity to his saliva. one of his kids had this problem. thought we were okay to go home since the trunk rash resolved.
no problem. i'm a nurse. i can handle it.
those three little hives turned to this by the time we got home.
not the best pictures but you get the idea.



well, no kidding daycare freaked out if he looked like this. and here is ben all chill like nothing is wrong.
 

why you taking my picture mom?


oh, more hives. on my leg... yeah, what is the problem?




get him changed and settled and he naps. and what do i see? more hives. oy. this could get old.  ben just needs to get better. no one wants a sick beanie.

finally after he woke up from his nap he was relatively hive free. yippee!!


isn't that a great 'i just woke up and you've got that gd camera in my face already? come on mom!' face?

so he's been hive free for about 2 hours.
nick has talked with our pediatrician. not sure that it is a true allergic reaction. holding off on the amoxicillin for the evening. no kiddie steroids as prescribed by the er doc. call pedi in the morning and give an update.
phew.

oh and it's nablopomo.


i'm trying it again this year. we'll see how i do! ;o)

7 comments:

Kache said...

Well I bet that was a nice scare for the day!
I'm glad Ben handled it well...hope it was a one time thing!

Danielle said...

So sorry to read all about Ben. I'm glad he's rash/hive free, that's the most important thing! Get some rest.

Colleen said...

Holy moly, batman! I was freaked out just reading this! Glad you got the pictures; you need that as a reference point in case anything else (God forbid) pops up in the next day or so. Poor little guy... just want to squeeze him!

I did crack up at that last picture, though! He's got such an "are you kidding me?" expression, LOL!

Oh.... LOVE the post title... reminded me of every episode of Friends!

Hang in! I'll say a prayer that all of this is behind you now.

Susan said...

yikes...darn kids are always pulling stunts like this to scare the crap out of you.

Alison said...

Hope you don't get any more scares like this soon, thinking of you - love that last pic : ).

Carrie said...

Wow! What a scare. Glad Ben is okay. Last picture is great :)

Laura Vigliarolo said...

Kids, ya gotta love um. I love that last picture.