We Knew This Day Would Come

We've always known that Adam was the kind of kid who would see the inside of the Emergency Department several times in his childhood. We always assumed it would be for a concussion or broken bones. Well, this visit had nothing to do with his lack of danger awareness. Let me explain.


We had the missionaries over for dinner and we were eating and chatting when Adam began to cough. He coughed quite a bit and then threw up. Scott and I assumed the coughing had caused him to throw up. We cleaned him up and got him out of his highchair since he didn't seem interested in eating anymore (nobody did). When I was getting him out of his highchair I noticed a bump on his eyelid, it looked like a spider bite. Scott took him to his playroom so we could finish dinner. A couple of minutes later he called from the other room to say that it was getting worse. This is what our beautiful son normally looks like:


This is how he looked after about 5 minutes:


We still weren't too concerned as Adam is known to break out into an occasional rash, but this was fast. I called our pediatrician's after hours number and the nurse said we should take him to the E.R. At this point he looked like this:




So, yeah, she didn't need to tell me twice. It wasn't just the rash, he was drooling profusely, as you can see on his shirt. While we were driving to the E.R. I couldn't help but laugh when I looked back at him. I realized after a few minutes what he reminded me of:


I would like to point out at this juncture in the story that Adam, apart from his appearance, was completely unaffected by all of this. He couldn't have cared less. I say this lest you think I was laughing at my child while he is gasping for air and crying in pain.

Anyway, we got to the hospital and endured all of the gasps as we walked past other patients. I guess it's both good and bad when you don't have to wait at the E.R. despite a room full of other sick kids. They immediately whisked Adam to a room and gave him an epinephrine shot, a dose of Benedryl and a dose of Pregnezone.

After giving him all of that, they wanted to monitor his heart rate for a couple of hours. Adam didn't mind waiting as long as they kept giving him Pedialyte in a bottle. We didn't leave the hospital until 10 p.m.

Adam is now the proud owner of an EpiPen and we have to make an appointment with the allergist, as the E.R. doctor said, "sooner rather than later."

Good times, good times...