Taylor's first ER visit

Never a dull moment...

Taylor went to bed on Thursday night around 8:00pm after a typical day. She had had a runny nose for several days and watery eyes which is typical of her environmental allergies. She woke up around 9:00pm fussy & sweaty. My gut told me she was getting sick. I took her temp (with our new thermometer, that I LOVE!) It said 97.7. So, I just took off her blanket and she settled right back down. John was out for the evening and I went to bed soon after that. John came home around 11:00 and woke me up because Taylor woke up crying and he noticed I had the thermometer out. He said he had just given her a drink & she went back down easily. Well, within a few minutes she was back up again and very miserable. I noticed her eyes were a little puffy and still no fever. It's very common for her to wake up with puffy eyes because of her environmental allergies, so I wasn't that concerned. As I was comforting her back to sleep, she threw up a little bit. Not unusual, either, because of her GERD, so I wasn't that concerned. I got her settled but didn't want to leave her in her room to sleep, not really sure of what was wrong. So, into our bed she went. She became increasingly miserable, her eyes were getting puffier so we gave Benadryl, not really sure how the puffy eyes were connected to everything else. Once we gave her the Benadryl, she threw up again. By this point, I was tallying up her symptoms & was thinking she may be experiencing anaphylaxis which is a life threatening allergic reaction and requires epinephrine (epi-pen) as the treatment. Given her symptoms were slowly progressing and she had been with me and hadn't eaten any new foods, I really didn't think it was anaphylaxis. Generally, anaphylaxis is a rapidly progressing, systemic reaction to an allergen within 2hrs of ingestion or contact (in the case of environmental allergen). It had been at least 4hrs since she had eaten. While one can experience anaphylaxis that is delayed like that, it's not common.

So, time went on & she would settle and fall back to sleep & then wake up in discomfort. By 12:15am I was telling John we should go the ER, just to have her checked. I really didn't think it was anaphylaxis (if I had thought that, I would have given her the epi-pen). But she was also more miserable than I have ever seen her & we didn't know what was wrong. We decided to just monitor her a little longer, b/c she was settled at the time. Well, then she woke up again. She was crying and when she took a deep breath she sound really barky and sounded like she was having trouble breathing deeply. I immediately told John to call 911. We grabbed the phone & called 911. I just really didn't think it was allergy related. We have epi-pens & had I thought it was anaphylaxis I would have definitely given the epi-pen.

She was settled by the time the paramedics arrived 5 minutes later. I explained her symptoms and our concerns. The swelling in her eyes had come down a lot since the Benadryl kicked in. They checked her breathing and said she had bronchial stuff going on, she was now running a low grade fever (100.6), and they said she should be taken to the ER. However, they said that she was safe enough for us to take her because she was calm at that point and they felt that if they got her upset by poking & prodding her, they may aggravate the mucous in her chest and do more harm than good. So we agreed to take her. I figured 6 paramedics weren't going to minimize a serious situation with a 2 y/o. They did stress that we needed to go to the ER "now".

So, off to the ER we went. They checked her ears, did a chest x-ray, diagnosed her with an ear infection and upper respiratory infection. They gave her a cool mist breathing treatment and gave an Rx for antibiotic and ordered her to be on Motrin every 8hrs for the next 5 days to reduce inflammation & keep her comfortable. They then sent us on our way, and we arrived back home around 4:30am after our very scary night.

She woke up Friday morning with a fever of 102. Gave Motrin & she was feeling much better within half an hour. She's still obviously not herself. She has a really mucousy cough and has been generally unwell. We follow up with our pediatrician next week.

The last time I took Taylor in with an ear infection, the ped said if she got another one she was sending us to an ENT. I can't remember how many she's had for sure, but I know she's had at least 5. I need to corral all of her medical records because we've had 3 different peds. Good peds are hard to find out here!

She was just into the ped at the beginning of August for a throat infection that began with a fever first thing on Saturday morning & landed us in the ped's office Monday AM because she was miserable and the fever resumed as soon as the Motrin wore off.

So, at the moment, she's on 4 different meds all at different times of the day. I'm going batty, we need a chart to keep track of it all: She's on Reglan (GERD) 20 mins before meals 3x/day, Zantac (GERD) 2x/day, Amoxicillin (infections) on an empty stomach 3x/day and then Motrin, every 8 hrs.

Could be worse...

So glad we're dealing with infections and it wasn't anaphylaxis.

We'll keep you all posted.