What's this?
Yes..that would be paramedics unloading my kid from their ambulance.
Wave for the camera....or not. He was not in a waving kind of mood.
So one afternoon we went in for allergy shots. Jacob complained that he was hungry...big shock, I know. After his shot he said his stomach felt funny so the nurse grabbed him a cookie and some juice. A minute later he made this funny coughing sound and said his head felt funny. Then he coughed again and said "it's kind of hard to breathe." The nurse's eyes widened a bit and she said "PUT down the cookie." I had to laugh..."step away from the cookie."
So she got him up in her chair and started to monitor him. She gave him a benedryl. The coughing got worse and the feeling of not being able to breathe got worse. She went to get the doctor. I sat watching him and his ears were bright red, his face was red, the whites of his eyes were red. Then he got this look on his face. It was a look that said, "I don't want to panic and make a big deal of this but I really really can't breathe and I'm starting to get freaked out." (Yes, his look told me all of that.) I went in the hallway and told the other nurse that he needed help now. It is a bit creepy watching your child go into anaphylactic shock.
The doctor came hustling in the room and listened to him. She said she could hear a whistling in is throat and that his throat was closing up...yeah..we kind of figured...and ACTION! They gave him a steroid shot....nothing. Eyes still bugging out, less air getting in. Then they went for the epi shot. It is amazing how quickly that stuff works. By the time the EMT's got there 12 minutes later (must've hit traffic because I could see the hospital from the front of the doctor's office), the reaction was completely done. The only catch...he could go back into anaphylactic shock once the epinepherine wears off, so off to the hospital he must go to be monitored. This did not make him happy. Then they told him to get on the gurney. THAT did not make him happy. Then they wheeled him out through the waiting room. THAT made him embarrassed. THEN there were 4 firefighters and their truck waiting outside for him. THAT made him MORTIFIED.
I joked with the nurse that when we went through the waiting room with all the patients sitting there I should huff loudly, "This doctor sucks!" She said "don't you DARE!" It would've been very funny though.
So at the hospital they watched him...Boring. Then the prescribed a steroid pack and sent him home.
The outcome...no more allergy shots for Jacob. The other outcome...I switched him out of the allergists care because when I went in to talk with him after all of this he could not tell me anything about why he might have reacted, why he was so so so sleepy, why all of his joints hurt and really what treatment plans we could go with. I was less than impressed with our "specialist". So I turned around and went to our family doctor who gave me tons of of information and options to try and had explanations for all of the symptoms he was experiencing.
At any rate...since going off of shots Jacob has had 2 asthma attacks (once each February during his bad allergy season) and now has to carry an inhaler. I think we are only looking at asthma problems during the winter months when his allergy season is in full swing, and he seems to do well the rest of the year.
Sheesh kid...if you wanted to quit shots you could've just said so...no need to get all dramatic.
