Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Isaac's Arch Nemesis

That's right. It's Mr. Peanut...and he's trying to kill you!...or atleast trying to kill Isaac. Peanut allergies ARE the worst :( Isaac unfortunately got ahold of a peanut butter M&M and that was all it took. Slowly but surely he went from complaining to crying to coughing to gagging. Then the incessant itching began and when we took off his sleeper he had terrible blochy raised up hives all over his body. We'd already given him Benedryl and his inhaler which usually cure him...but instead he was getting worse and worse. At this point Rob made the call and injected the Epi pen into his thigh. It was about 11:30 pm and luckily we were able to have our friend Jeff come over and watch the other two sleeping boys while we drove Isaac to the ER at Alta View. The epinephrine relieved his symptons almost immediately, but then they slowly came back. Once we were in the ER, concerned looking doctors and nurses kept running back and forth with various attempts to stabilize his heart and lungs. They put an IV into his arm and gave him an oxygen mask. His labored breathing and hives kept coming and dying in waves over the next couple hours so they decided to transport him in an ambulance to Primary Childrens Hospital.
It was not hard to convince Isaac to go on a ride in the "weee oooooh" truck, but his excitement wasn't enough to keep him awake and Isaac was finally able to sleep at about 3am. Once were at Primary's they had him breathe in a constant flow of Albuterol vapor and that seemed to finally be the end of his reactions. Even still we were not able to leave the hospital for a full 24 hours because often there is an initial reaction followed by a last stage reaction. So we stayed just to make sure Isaac was officially "out of the woods".

Keeping a wild and active 2 year old calm and in one place is not an easy task. Since Isaac is a "Dada's boy" Rob got the daunting task of caring for Isaac in the hospital while I attended to the other two boys. You can imagine that Isaac was not too happy about being attached to a machine with a myriads of tangled wires. Needless to say, Rob did a lot of rocking, watching of DVDS, and whatever else he could come up with to keep Isaac occupied. At long last, they released our brave boy and Isaac was finally "Done, done." We are soooo grateful that Isaac was able to survive this latest peanut battle. We LOVE our Squeaks with all of our hearts and hope the cure for all of this comes sooner than later.