You will never believe it.
Well, our most major news this week is that yesterday I had another allergic reaction. We went to a luncheon at our bishops home and after filling my plate I grabbed what looked to be a harmless chocolate chip cookie. I ate my food periodically smelling the chocolate chip cookie to make sure it smelled normal…even my mom’s chocolate chip cookies (which she carefully bakes so that I can eat them) for some reason have a faint hint of peanut smell so I deemed the cookie to smell ok. Nevertheless, it was the very last thing I ate. (In hindsight I think Heavenly Father might have been trying to warn me not to eat it, I NEVER smell cookies that many times before finally eating them.) Anyway, I ate probably oh, 2-3 bites of the cookie (thank goodness I didn’t eat all of it) and started to feel the familiar tingling in the throat and swelling of the lips. I was somewhat baffled as to why I was reacting to what I thought was a regular chocolate chip cookie but since the cookies were all home baked I chalked it up to the fact that maybe they had been baked on the same pan as the nutty cookies and the oils had mixed. Anyway, I asked Brandon and the bishop to give me a blessing and Brandon and I drove home so that I could take a loratadine (which is an antihistamine) and I brushed my teeth, gargled some mouthwash and ate a couple otter pops before we headed toward Desert Star to go and see a play. Well, on the way to the show I started to feel bad again, my mouth and throat felt ok but I started to itch and my esophagus was burning. Upon parking at the theatre I tossed my cookies. So I sent Brandon in to see what he could arrange for seeing the show another time and decided that we should head home so that I could try and recover from my allergy. Well, I was really thirsty so we stopped and bought a sprite at 7-11 and I used the restroom. Well, as we passed 3300 south on state street and my breathing became increasingly restricted, I decided that we had better go to the emergency room at St. Mark’s. We got there and Brandon dropped me off at the door while he parked the car. I went in and explained what was happening and within just a few minutes I was in a room being attended to. They took some blood and then gave me some steroids and a dose of epinephrine. You would not believe the shock of each nurse and the doctor as I explained that I am allergic to Benedryl and that the reaction I have when I am given Benedryl is anaphylatic shock. Because that is generally what they give patients having an allergic reaction it just baffled them extensively. I have decided that I need to type up a little card that I can give a doctor in the event that I can not talk so that they don’t give me Benedryl to help me. That could potentially be fatal. They also gave me a dose of breathing treatment on the nebulizer. That took me back to my childhood, and was actually oddly comforting. After all of that they monitored me for another hour or so before sending me to labor and deliver to have Aiden monitored to make sure that all was well. When E.R. discharged me they sent me with a prescription for an Epipen, prednisol, and pepcid to prevent another reaction to that same nut. They told me that sometimes there can still be bits of nut that haven’t come out yet, or just the memory of the nut and that those can cause a second reaction with 10-12 hours of the first. Needless to say they took very good care of me.
In labor and delivery they hooked me up to the monitor that measures Aiden’s heartbeats and my contractions. After what was probably 45 mins. the nurse came in and asked if I was feeling the contractions that I had been having. I said no. She asked if Aiden had been moving and I told her he had, then she explained that Aiden’s heart beat was a little high (185 b.p.m) and that my contractions were probably due to my being dehydrated. She said that she had spoken to my obgyn and that because Aiden’s heartbeat was so high they wanted to monitor me a bit longer and also put an I.V. in me to give me some liquids to see if the contractions would even out and spread apart. So we stayed another hour or so and I watched as Aiden’s heartbeat gradually went back down to normal and as my contractions spread out and became less intense. At 8:00 or so they said that baby is doing good and we were given the all clear to go home. Brandon brought the car around and the nurse wheeled me out. It was a good dry run for labor in a few weeks. We were there 5-6 hours and I didn’t get to eat anything (I did have two tiny apple juices to help with dehydration), we also didn’t have much to do. I got to watch t.v. in the E.R. and I started a movie on Brandon’s Ipod in the labor and delivery triage room. As for the cause of the allergy, we found out today at church that there had been walnuts in the cookie. Bad walnuts!
As for the rest of the week, Brandon worked 4 1/2 at a temp. job this week and applied at what felt like a gazillion places. Still no interviews but he plans to contact people tomorrow to follow up on the jobs he applied for. He has also been enjoying school.
Friday night we invited some friends over because Brandon wanted to make sushi with them. I of course knew from the beginning that I would be eating something else, but did taste a cucumber and rice roll (I removed the seaweed from it because it smelled terrible). Brandon also made some chicken and rice asian stir fry which was good, I ate around the things I didn’t like and the seasoning was tasty. As always his friends were good company and the time passed by too quickly.
Well, that is all for this week. I promise not to have another emergency room visit in the near or distant future. The next time I am admitted into the hospital will be to deliver a little baby boy into the world! 🙂 We will keep you posted!