So.
DD got epinephrine today at my house.
Because I was careless. Because she was careless.
Because she doesn't
LIVE here, and like most of us with kids her age.... I've now started to once in a while buy things that are cross contaminated-- often without even thinking about that cross-contamination. But because she is still new to NOT living here, and because our house has always been safe... she often THINKS that I've checked things even if I haven't.
I bought meringue cookies. DD's cooked egg tolerance is VERY high at this point-- definitely high enough that the basic ingredients should have been fine, at least for the three bite-sized (no, literally-- maybe 1tsp each) cookies she ate. I offered them without even THINKING about it.
But NOPE....
started with that
itchy mouth, ughhhh... wow, guess egg tolerance isn't that good after all.... disappointing...
benadryl, then.
five minutes--
....
metallic, funky taste, she asked for her backpack (with her epipens) then
feeling something in her throat, like-- swallowing past swelling.
I finally think to look at the damned LABEL.... realizing that I hadn't actually DONE that...
sure enough-- shared facility with peanut, tree nuts.
I am no longer thinking of this as a contact reaction to egg... now I am scared.
At this point I offered her epinephrine-- said "look- you can see if it helps, I have
lots that is expired, just use one and see-- you don't have to call 911, I promise
*...)
another minute or two, her arguing.... sneezing (which she blew me off about)
drank more water..... obsreved that her boyfriend and I
"sounded like the Sims."
Her color looked... OFF...
I made her lie down...
wanted a SECOND benadryl....
I pointed out to her that the label had a shared facility warning-- that this might not be egg.
Then
dizzy-- and
chest tightness. Sniffling... About 15 minutes in at this point.
This is when I laid down the law-- either she self-administered, I did, or her boyfriend would. She was going to, but cried and couldn't... was irrationally complaining about the needle, provoking a panic attack, etc. etc.
Within seconds, she was feeling like she might start vomiting... but this went away pretty quickly, maybe 1-2min? She did bleed a bit where I'd injected her.
Five minutes later, she apologized for-- and I hope that she pardons me here...
"for screaming like Mr. B's DS1 about that." And admitted that she felt WAY better, chest tightness was just "tight" not "asthma-tight" and she could swallow and wasn't dizzy... her eustachian tubes were still a little puffy, I think.
I knew she was feeling better when she twirled the used epipen and quipped-- "SOoooo... how much do you think Heather Bresch would think this was worth? What-- 6, 700?"
They stayed here for another 2hr-- and her boyfriend has instructions (including a grading chart, at least he will in five minutes) to-- at the FIRST sign of any returning symptoms-- hit her with another epipen, have two more on stand-by, and call 911 or transport her himself-- to the ER. (They live about 5 min from the ER doors-- still faster than an ambulance response to them).
* We live LITERALLY 2minutes from the ER doors. Not kidding. Also true that she is asthmatic, so is her boyfriend, so am
I-- and none of us needs the flu, which is endemic here at the moment. Sitting in the ER for 6hr = bad for other reasons tonight. Did I mention how much epineephrine we both have?
Feeling pretty beat up right now.
I still have work to do tonight b/c my boss has a meeting with someone from NQ-- The Gates Foundation (OMG!! OMG!! I know!!)
tomorrow. [/color]
Actually-- maybe no quoting directly from any of this.
This is definitely the scariest reaction she's had in about five years. The last one this scary was at the foot of Montmartre in Paris when she was 13. That one looked like classic asthma-- but rescue meds just weren't helping.
This was anaphylactic.