Father's Day with a Little Hitch

Last night we were out celebrating Father's Day with a delicious BBQ with our friends. Dinner was over, and the kids were playing with Nerf guns. My husband called me to the bathroom where my son had gone to take out his contact lenses. My hubby, J, was under the impression that my son, S, got hit in the eye, since one of his eyes was very, very swollen. The reality was that S had come to take out the lenses because his eyes were itchy. While we were watching, his entire face swelled up to look remarkably like this:



We didn't waste a minute- J and I jumped in the car with S, leaving the girls in the capable hands of our friends. As we were driving, S's face was swelling by the minute, and he started complaining about his throat getting tight. As I dialed 911, he began wheezing and gasping for air. His eyes and nose were running like crazy and his voice began to sound more like a growl than actual human speech. We determined it was faster to speed to the hospital than pull over and wait for an ambulance.

As we pulled into the emergency bay at our local hospital, I ran in with S while my husband parked the car. I approached the desk:
"Hello! My son is having a severe allergic reaction! I need him to be seen right away!"
Without even looking up, the receptionist motioned to paperwork to be filled out and turned in, then we could have a seat.
"Um, no."
One glance at my boy's face, and the receptionist got up from her desk and RAN into the emergency room (bless her heart). In seconds, S had the attention of several nurses and doctors. He was so brave as they put in his first ever iv line, hooked him up to fluids and then gave him some meds to chill out the reaction. They also hooked him up to a heart monitor, and found him with a heartrate of 145... way too high to give him the Epinephrine that he needed. The medication that they did give him, though it helped him to breathe right away, caused him to shake uncontrollably. They found a bed for him right away (excessively rare in our area) and as they tucked him in with purple hands and feet, shaking, eyes the size of golf balls, nose swollen, ears red, heartbeat racing, waiting for the meds to sink in, I finally took a deep breath and prayed.

It was one of those simple, desperate prayers that are not really made up of words, but instead are comprised of something that I just can't describe. There was just a connection between my mommy heart and my Daddy's heart and I just knew that He had it in control. I sent a text to my Twitter account, who relayed the same message to my Facebook account:

In hospital with son. Severe allergic reaction. Please pray.

Now, here is where I would like to say that never have I been so grateful for social networking in all my life. Though I wouldn't read the notes until I got home (I don't have one of them fancy internet phones) dozens of people from both FB and Twitter let me know they were instantly praying. Even though I couldn't see them, I just could feel the prayers, and knowing that there were so many people petitioning for my son was so extremely comforting. I just literally felt a peace washing over me.

About an hour or so later, his heartrate settled into a nice respectable 100 bpm. The shaking stopped. He was breathing normally, and could open one eye. We were sent home after another hour of observation, prescriptions in hand, and instructions to make an appt. with an allergist ASAP so we can get to the bottom of what on earth caused this reaction. When we got home, we made a list of everything he ingested yesterday (which is quite a list... that boy is a serious eater) including Advil. We'll see if the doctor has a better understanding about what we can avoid in the future to make sure that this never happens again.

Today, his face is still startlingly swollen. Right now he can actually open both eyes, but his face is still puffy and he doesn't look right. He's already up and eating again, a sure sign that he's on the mend. I'm feeling exhausted but thankful... God is so good!

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good! His faithful love endures forever.
Psalm 107:1