STRESS

Last week was interesting. We had a couple scares. The first was when Tiffany left for a YW Activity Saturday morning and Daddy was in charge of Connor. (Daddy may never be in charge of Connor again, BTW.)

Connor was up in his high chair having some fruit and dry cereal. Normally I'll grab a bowl of cereal along with him, and since my cereal is usually more entertaining than his cereal, I'll slip him a few pieces. On this particular morning, we had run out of Cap'n Crunch, so I was having some Reese's Puff's cereal. (Yes, I know these are extremely healthy breakfast choices...) I took some of them and threw them on Connor's tray. He liked them, so I got the box and poured out some more.

(He probably liked them because he's never tasted peanut butter before, due to his suspected allergy to peanuts.) I looked over at him after a few seconds, and he was breaking out with red blotches all over his face worse than I've ever seen him. I was confused for a second, thinking that nothing I had given him contained milk. Then it hit me -- I ran and grabbed the box, and sure enough, the box said "Contains Peanuts."

I dashed into the bathroom and grabbed our Epi-pen, and rushed back out to Connor. The doctor had told us when she gave us the prescription that the only reason kids die from these types of allergies is because their parents wait until the breathing is constricted to use the Epi-pen.

I ran him into the bed and laid him down and started to undress him. He was sneezing over and over and over. I laid him down and prepared to jab him with the needle, but then I saw that he didn't seem to be having any trouble breathing. Most of the blotches were around his eyes. I just pictured how traumatic it was going to be for Connor to have me to jab him with this needle and hold it in for 15 seconds. So I did the exact opposite of what the doctor said and just watched him for a minute.

I decided I would drive Connor over to the hospital (which is only a mile away), so I threw on my shoes and a hat. But then I noticed the car seat was in the front room and I would have to install it. So I decided to go back into the wait & watch mode.

Connor's whole face was blotchy red, and his eyes were all swelled up with big welts on his eyelids. But he was acting completely normal. I sent Tiffany a quick text message that said, "Connor is DEFINITELY allergic to peanuts." She asked why, and I sent a quick ex plantation. Next thing I know she was calling me and told me she was on her way home.

Within a few minutes, she came home and, with one glance at Connor, said, "Spencer!!! Why didn't you give him the Epi-pen shot and take him to the emergency room?!" (The sad thing is that I was actually thinking he was looking much better at that point compared to what he had looked like.) I had no good answer for her -- I should have given him the Epi-pen and taken him to the emergency room. I have no good reason for not doing it.

She gave him some Benadryl, and the blotches disappeared from everywhere but his eyes. Here is a pic we took right after we gave him the Benadryl:



(It's hard to tell from the pic, but he looked like a little red-eyed raccoon.) But as demonstrated in this next pic, he was still in a great mood, despite Daddy trying to kill him minutes before.




Aside from this, Connor had already started to have a little bit of a cold on Thursday and Friday. And by Saturday night, he started to run a fever as well. By Sunday night, he was throwing up and completely lethargic. He wouldn't eat anything, and we couldn't get him to drink much either.

We took him into the doc first thing Monday morning. After a quick examination, the doctor said that Connor had an ear infection and some sort of virus. He said that they would need to draw some blood to check his electrolytes.

We've already been through the blood-drawing one time only a couple weeks ago to test for an egg allergy (which he tested positive for.) In fact, Connor must have remembered, because he started crying the second we walked into the exam room this time. The last time was one of the worst moments I've had so far as a parent, as they held him down and jabbed the needle into his arm, and he looked over at me with this look of desperation and shock that I was standing by while they did this to him. This time was no different.

Here's a pic of Connor and Mommy right after they'd drawn the blood:



As if that wasn't bad enough, the results came back that his electrolytes were low. The doc said we could take him home and try to get some fluids in him, but we knew he hadn't been drinking anything, so the doctor had us take him up to put him on an I.V.

The I.V. was even worse than getting the blood drawn. Connor didn't even struggle much because he was so weak -- He just laid there and cried. We tried to lay him in the little hospital bed, but he only wanted us to hold him, and we were happy to oblige. Here's a pic of him right after they hooked him up:



We were there for probably 2 hours before that I.V. was finished, and by that point, Connor was at least sitting up.



But he still hadn't had a wet diaper, so they hooked him up to another I.V.. He ate some crackers, but ended up throwing up. Before long, he was back to being lethargic. This is about as far as he opened his eyes all of Sunday and Monday and most of Tuesday.



He ended up falling asleep while Tiffany held him, which we were grateful for because he hadn't slept much. I think by the point this next picture was taken, we'd been at the hospital about 5 hours.



They came in and checked his diaper again after the second I.V., and it was wet. They released us from the hospital and told us to watch him close, to only give him clear liquids for that night, and to come back in if he threw up 3 times. Luckily, he didn't end up throwing up any more, and he seemed to be doing much better.

On Tuesday morning, he had gotten a full night's rest and seemed to be doing better. We actually even got him to eat a banana.



But what he mostly did all day Tuesday was sleep.



My dad came over and helped me give him a blessing, and within a couple hours, he was up and walking around. (I realized we had been foolish in not giving him a blessing before then, but everything just happened so gradually, and we kept thinking he was almost better.) By Wednesday morning, he was eating and back to destroying the house.

Tiffany has decided that she knows where Connor got this virus: Connor's first time in the McDonald's PlayPlace on our way home from Las Vegas.



How does she know? She was there (and said it was disgusting!) :)



Since then, Connor has been feeling better every day. He's got a cough and a runny nose still, but that hasn't stopped him from getting back to his two favorite past times:

1. Taking off the vent covers, throwing things inside, and getting inside himself...



2. ... and climbing.



This parenting stuff is stressful! And this is nothing compared with what other parents have gone through (and likely what we'll go through ourselves.) Daddy needs to find a good heart doctor. :)