I Don’t Know If I’m Cut Out For This…

Yesterday was probably my scariest parenting day thus far. Granted he’s only 6 1/2 months so I’m sure there will be scarier days ahead but so far this one takes the cake. The day started out pretty great. Noah slept in until 9 am and then we went to  my mom’s house so Noah could spend the day with his cousins. It was a very average day. At around 4 am I had a little snack of a cheese stick and since Noah had been doing so great on his solids I gave him a few bites. BIG MISTAKE! The poor baby was fine for about an hour or so then he started really fussing and squirming when he went down for his nap and actually ended up sleeping on me.

When he finally fell asleep he let out a huge burp that sounded like he was going to throw up but he just kept on sleeping. About half an hour later he woke up and had a bump on the back of his head. I showed it to my mom and asked if she saw him topple over or anything (Now that he’s sitting up all by himself 🙂 ) and by the time we examined it his entire skull had broken out in like nickel size welts and he was starting to get a few on his neck and face. We immediately gave him some benedryll and called my aunt who’s a nurse and she told us what respiratory signs and things we needed to look out for. After about 20 minutes it appeared that the meds were kicking in. The welts had at least stopped growing and seemed like they may even be going down. I should mention that Noah was happy and laughing the entire time. The kids a champ, he truly is. I think the Benedryll actually made him hyper because the kid was wired for about an hour, and then he suddenly got very groggy so I loaded him up and we drove the 5 minutes home from my mom’s house.

When we got home he was sort of half asleep, half awake but he looked miserable. I should add here that my firefighter husband was on shift yesterday and he works about 35 minutes away.  Anyways, I pull Noah out of his carseat and he’s just laying on me when all of a sudden I’m COVERED in puke! I freaked, called the hubs and told him to come home. He told me to call 911 which I did, after calling my mom and telling her to hurry over here.  At this point I was frozen. All I could do was hold Noah and feel completely helpless and guilty beyond belief. Luckily my mom showed up quickly to help and the fire department was here within minutes. They assured me that he was fine for the moment and that I could drive him to the hospital myself if I wanted to and I agreed. Then he started shivering and I freaked out even more so we ended up going to the hospital by ambulance. Luckily we are only a few miles away from a great children’s hospital and my husband was there by the time we got there.  The nurses and doctors were great and assured me that he’d be ok. The assured me that I could give him a larger dose of Benedryll if it ever happens again but to stay away from cheese for a while. (Ummm Duh!) Now I find myself terrified to give him anything. I made my husband feed him his peaches this morning even though he’s had them a dozen times or so because I was still too freaked out to give him anything.  Anyways, I guess the next step is to get in to see a pediatric allergist. Luckily I have found some great mom’s on twitter who have gone through the same thing and have really been a great support. Now I just pray that he outgrows it. I know he was on the younger end of when they recommend starting cheese and yogurt but I NEVER expected this reaction. If anything I would have expected just the vomitting since that is what he does with rice cereal. Anyways, please just pray that we can see an allergist quickly and that we don’t have anymore reactions!