Back to the ER

On Sunday, Lyssa showed up with Christian as I was finishing up work. His face was really red and he wouldn't stop crying. Lyssa thought he was just tired of being in the car, but his eyes looked swollen and we realized he was having an allergic reaction to something, so we rushed to the pediatric ER for the third time this month.

I was pretty concerned for him on the ride over, cause traffic was heavy and he didn't look so good. In addition to the swollen eyes, he had developed a red rash over most of his body. Once we got there though, we didn't have to wait very long. They gave him a shot and he seemed to do better. We had to stay 30 minutes in the waiting area to see how much he improved. I took the opportunity to grade papers, but after a few minutes Christian threw up all over the place. It was pink, from some strawberry yogurt he had eaten earlier, which we figure was probably what had caused the reaction (despite the fact that we'd given him both strawberries and yogurt in the past). We had to take off his clothes since they were covered in vomit, and we didn't have anything to change him into. His rash seemed to improve quickly from this point, but since he wasn't wearing anything he kept scratching himself.

He wasn't completely improved after 30 minutes and was wheezing a bit, so they admitted him. They gave him two breathing treatments and some steroids to help with the rash and wheezing. Christian fell asleep during the first treatment and from there it got pretty boring. After about an hour the rash was totally gone, but we had to stick around for another breathing treatment. At this point though, we knew that he was totally fine, so we just wanted to get going.

Since getting back Christian has been okay without any problems. In fact, Lyssa took him to the zoo the other day (where she tried to feed the chimpanzees popcorn and they reached through the cage to grab her. It was scary). We are going to keep him away from strawberries for a while though, and make sure we always has some spare clothes handy. Just in case.