Peanut, peanut butter..and jelly!

Yes, the rumors are true--I did have the pleasure of taking the Wudge to the ER twice last week.  May I never have to repeat that experience.  I nearly died of boredom and overwork (keeping a one-year-old entertained without letting him touch anything or crawl on the dirty floor is majorly hard work!).  On Monday, he was having retractions so in we went.  Diagnosis: bronchiolitis, possible asthma.  They gave us an inhaler & spacer and sent us home.  That helped a lot and is further confirming my suspicions that this young man is going to have asthma like his daddy.  Grr...

Two days later, on Weds, I made the mistake of letting him try a little peanut butter for lunch.  I hadn't given him any yet, and had cut it out of my diet when I was nursing him because it seemed to make his tummy upset.  The good news?  He didn't die.  The bad news?  His throat closed up and he started turning blue.  Yes, it was one of the scariest moments of my life.  You have these memories that are burned into your brain in moments like this: mine is of him leaning into me, not even able to cry with this panicked look on his face as he tried to cough and cough.  {{I'll add it to the one where I pulled on his leg after it was broken and he passed out from the pain.  Since he was an infant (3 months), I thought he was just falling asleep after crying so hard.}}  I stupidly gave him his inhaler first, not really thinking.  It helped a miniscule amount.  Then I was prompted in a most definitely way to pump him full of Benadryl.  That helped some, so that he was breathing better, but he still started busting out some major hives on the back of his head.  Poor kids couldn't scratch hard enough.  So in we went to the ER again.  Gag.

Of course the nurses didn't believe me and told me he had been choking (he had been eating lunch, remember?).  I told them that I knew choking and look at these welts, please.  When the doctor finally examined him, he concurred that it had been an allergic reaction, complete w/breathing difficulties.  So we are now the proud owner of EpiPens, plus a cool practice cartridge that we get to slam into each other's thighs for "practice".  I'm picturing the time when Derek suddenly gets allergic to bee stings and I get to stab him with one of them...

These pictures are awful 'cause they're from my phone, and the Wudge has never been known to hold still (even in his sleep), but they are supposed to show his hives.  They drugged him up good w/epinephrine (took care of those hives real fast and made him stinkin' hyper) and some steroids.  The steroids were for his "croup" as the nurses liked to call it--I like to call it the after-affects of an anaphylactic event.  One nurse went so far as to lecture me on not feeding my baby peanut butter until 2 or 3.  (In my defense, when my oldest was a baby over a decade ago, the suggested age was over one year.)  Love being lectured when I'm worried about my baby's life.  Love it. 

Fortunately, there was a silver lining.  As soon as the epi wore off, this boy conked.  (Finally, a child that falls asleep from Benadryl instead of getting jittery & hyper!)  He took the loooooooongest nap, and was feeling a lot better that evening, and has continued getting better from his cold each day.  Poor, little boy.  Wait, I don't pity him.  Other than nearly suffocating on his own throat, he had hours of free entertainment and extra loving all week.  I was the one that suffered.  I definitely need to claim some worker's comp for this.