Sunday, December 28, 2008

Merry Christmas and stuff

I hope that this finds you all having survived a lovely Christmas-wherever you and and however you celebrated. I'd love to post some pics, but I'm on Matt's new computer and haven't loaded any of them onto this machine.

So, our holiday was lovely. We started out at our house and then went over to my folks. We had a lovely day (even though I had ANOTHER cold) and enjoyed each others' company. Then Matt, Joseph, and I left at 5:15 Friday morning for Chicago to visit his family. We pulled in around 10:30 (Chicago-time) and promptly crashed. Yesterday was spent re-couping and Christmassing with his parents, sister, and brother-in-law. Today (I'm finally feeling a bit better) was Church and then festivities with Matt's aunt, uncle, grandpa, and cousin (with family). Again, a lovely time was had...mostly. Matt's poor little cousin (4 yrs old) got a little carsick on the way over and ate too quickly once she got here, so she got sick all over the table. Yum. Then, Joseph had an allergic reaction (like none he's ever had--kind of scary, actually) and we almost ran out to the ER. Thank goodness for Benadryl. Then, Grandpa kind of had a bit of an accident on the couch. So, it was a crazy hectic and bizarre day.

This reaction that Joseph had really kind of freaked us out. He woke up from a nap and ate a piece of cheese. His GI told us a couple of weeks ago to start introducing dairy and see how he does. So, we've been feeding him yogurt and cheese with no adverse reactions. He ate this piece of cheese today, and then I gave him a cracker from a plate with a cheeseball on it and his face, neck, back, tummy, and arms started breaking out in itchy hives. He got all swollen and was a miserable itchy mess. Matt ran out to get some liquid Benadryl while I called his doctor. We were steps from the door to go to the ER (his face was like one big itchy swollen hive) when his doctor called back and said that as long as his lips and tongue weren't swelling up (which they weren't, and he could definitely breathe--he was screaming himself silly), that the Benadryl should do the trick. So, we dosed him and waited. That stuff is amazing. He cooled off and got his appropriate color back within about 40 minutes. He was down on the floor chatting and playing with his cousins again within about an hour. My heart finally started beating regularly around that time too. I couldn't believe that the cheese would have given him that reaction since he'd been enjoying it for a while. Matt's cousin, Karen, mentioned that he had gotten the cracker from the cheeseball plate and the cheeseball was covered in nuts. Ding! My mom has a terrible tree nut allergy, and it would seem that Joseph does too. He puffed all up after he got the cracker, and the cracker had been touching the ball. I think that it's just tree nuts since he's had tastes of Chinese food with no reaction and that's dripping in peanut oil (usually). But, we're probably going to get him officially tested when we get home. I'm going to wait a couple of days and give him some more yogurt just so that I know that it isn't the dairy. We're not going to give him a walnut.

Poor little guy. He had us all a little freaked out. I promise to post pics as soon as I can (not from his reaction--I was a little nervous during that ordeal). I'm collecting them on the camera for now.

2 comments:

  1. Oh, gosh, how scary! Sounds like you had...um...quite a holiday! (I hate it when kids puke on the table! Blehhhhh!)

    ReplyDelete
  2. yikes! seriously, it's horrible watching your child balloon up...lauren did it too after eating a bowl of different kinds of nuts. We know she's good with the regular nut as she can eat peanut butter fine, but like, you we need to have her tested. Just carry the magic liquid benedryl with you everywhere! have fun in chicago and have a safe trip back. my parents leave on monday...having a fun break! let's get together soon, ok?!

    ReplyDelete