In November my brother got married in Louisiana. We were excited for this family trip and decided to visit my husband's grandma in Arkansas too. Grandma has cats and come to find out Jacob is allergic to cats. Severely allergic.
After a couple of hours at grandma's Jacob's eyes were red and puffy. I gave him some benadryl and he looked better. We went to bed. In the morning his eyes were read and puffy and he was wheezing. When I changed his clothes his chest was retracting with each breath. Yikes! Another dose of benadryl and we packed up and hit the road.
I called our pediatricians office back in Utah as soon as they opened. Nurse Sam told me he needed to be seen ASAP and that he might be in anaphylactic shock. We called my father-in-law and had him look up insta-care facilities that would take our insurance. We found one in Texarkana, Texas that wasn't too far from where we were at on our route from Arkansas to Louisiana.
We got to the insta-care and the nurse practitioner came into see Jacob. We talked about Jacob's medical history, heart defect and his open heart surgery. The NP listened too Jacob's heart and lifted his shirt to see the retracting I was talking about. The NP left the room and came back seconds later with a doctor and nurse. The two more nurses came in. Jacob got a shot of steroids, more benadryl, and a breathing treatment of albuterol. They were worried about him and I realized “Wow this is a lot more serious than I thought!” After all the drugs had kicked in we were released with prescriptions for four different medicines and off to the local Target to get them filled.
After a fun wedding in Louisiana we headed back to Arkansas for more time with grandma. We were able to stay with a wonderful neighbor of theirs and have short medicated visits to grandma's house and a couple of field trips before we flew back home a few days later.
The day after arriving home I called and scheduled an appointment with the allergist. Jacob has a skin scratch test done. Sure enough cat came back with a highly positive reaction. No furry friends for us anytime soon!
After talking about Jacob's tendency to contract colds that turn into croup the doctor suspected Jacob also has asthma (which also runs in out family, I know nice genetics). So now Jacob will spend the rest of the winter on medicines to see if it helps him stay healthy. After 6 weeks things are looking good so far.
Jacob's echo is tomorrow. I am anxious but hopeful that all will look well. This is his first echo since he was 6 months old. Did I mention I am feeling a little anxious?
How cute is this boy!
4 comments:
I am sorry about the scary part... But you are not missing much with this pet thing. It is a lot of hard work. Jacob-man is darling....
Hope the echo went well - we had an echo scheduled for last week too - but ours ended up getting rescheduled because Max had a little cold and they wouldn't risk sedation when he was wheezing just a bit... so we go back in February.
He is adorable!
E goes in every two years now for his echo/check up and each time I get so anxious. Everything has always been good and we have no indications or reasons to worry, but I still get stressed and anxious over it. I'm always so relieved when it's over!
I know how he feels, I to am allergic to cats! I can tell with in 5 min if they have a cat! Throat closes, ichy eyes! And then it's time to go! Poor kids! How dod the echo go? Hope all went well and He is doing better! Hope you're good as well! Love ya girly!
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