Always be prepared AKA my little boy scared me!

What a crazy two weeks this has been?!  Where to start? 

This past Sunday, I ventured to IKEA for the first time with Tate after his nap.  Now he's had a cough for about 2 1/2 weeks.  I know he has seasonal allergies as diagnosed by our allergist, so I wasn't terribly concerned.  I've been running the cool mist humidifier (and freezing my bum off and my black girl hair is not appreciative either, but I digress) for him every night.  Yes, we share a room!  I also suction his nose when I think he'll only kick me every other second.  In any event, we all know he has a pretty severe egg allergy.  We get into IKEA and he's really starting to cough.  And cough.  And cough.  I try to get him to drink some water...no go.  I give him a mum mum which he devours then resumes his coughing.  He doesn't want to be in the stroller which is totally not like him.  He doesn't want to walk.  He doesn't want to be carried.  Again, pushes away the water.  And still continuing to cough.  We're on the second floor of this ridiculously huge store (I had never been there), and I realize something is really bothering him.  He's getting worse, and I cannot get out of this place fast enough.  I decide to put him on me in my baby carrier, and that seems to calm him a bit, but he's still coughing and now starting to seem to be having difficulty breathing.  We finally get out of that place, and some nice ladies help me get my stroller in the car.  But he's starting to look miserable.  He's constantly coughing and looking disoriented.  I vacillate...do I drive us home or try to calm him down.  I don't have the epi-pen because we weren't going to be eating, so why would I need it!!  Furious with myself, and of course I don't have benadryl with me...who carries benadryl in their purse?  (well me now)  I put him in the carseat and race out of the parking lot.  Tate does not look good.  I keep shaking the carseat to keep him awake.  We finally get home, and I race him upstairs and get some benadryl in him.  He's really struggling to breathe in between the constant coughing.  In addition his eyelids are severely swollen (he's been rubbing them now like crazy and his ears are bright red)  My best friend hears him on the phone when I call to see what her daughter's first asthma attack sounded like, and she said 'not like that, and I don't think he sounds good at all'.  I call Lindsey to please come over and ride with me to the ER because I don't want him in the back seat alone where his head could loll forward and occlude his airway.  Thankfully she's only about 10 minutes away.  When she gets here thank God he is no longer struggling to catch his breath, and the coughing has subsided.  I'm still not sure if we should go to the ER, so I call the ped on call.  The nurse is awesome and tells me what to do.  We give Tate a bath, saline and suction his nose and monitor him.  She also tells me he'll probably need another dose of benadryl in 5-6 hours as the symptoms may recur.  Sure enough around 930 Tate wakes up and his eyelids are swollen again...not as bad though.   We saw his ped yesterday, and she feels he had some sort of allergic reaction to a food whereas I thought it was something at IKEA with all that furniture and dust.  However whether it is a food or not,  I have no idea what it could be.  He didn't have anything with egg in it, so it's got to be something else.  So, now we have to figure out what it could be and be hyper vigilant about what he eats until we do.  So from now on I'm giving him fresh fruits, veggies and meats.  We're really going to avoid anything not homemade.  Which is going to be interesting seeing how little I like to cook.   As for the cough which was back to his 'normal' cough yesterday, he's being treated for a sinus infection...my ped was less than thrilled he had had the cough for so long.

So, tonight I am so grateful my little boy is doing so much better.  He's his happy little self...playing, running around, bringing me books to read and his cars to push, and constantly asking for 'gurt' (yogurt)  I cannot express how very scared I was this time.  I don't usually panic about much, but this was more than I thought I could handle.  As I was racing home in the car, I was beside myself wishing I had a partner in this child-rearing to hold my hand when I get scared.  I wanted someone else to help me to decide...'do I call an ambulance or do I drive to the ER' 'which ER do I go to' 'you grab his diaper bag, I'll grab the insurance info.'  Never have I felt so alone as an SMC.  Tate only has me to depend on, so next time I'm going to be prepared.  I'm buying a small baby bag or something of the sort and packing it with essentials, and it will be downstairs by the door for in case of a run to the ER.  I'm going to go to the little ER clinic up the street and ask them do they see babies comfortably.  I now will carry 2 epi pens all the time (the ped said I need 2, and I've given another to his daycare as well).  I will determine which is the closest, best choice for a hospital for a child.  And next time I will simply call an ambulance if I feel it is warranted.

Oh and I should have known that shopping someplace cheap like IKEA would be a bad idea.  Now I know!!  Ethan Allen has outfitted my home beautifully...no dust there!  We're going there this weekend!!!