On Tuesday, Justin had a severe allergic reaction to something in the formula he had at lunch time. It was the same kind of formula he’d had as a newborn (when we were supplementing), but it has been many many months since he’s had any kind of formula.
I was out coaching at the time and had just gotten off the ice when Chad called me saying that Justin was throwing up and gagging a lot, so he was calling the doctor. By the time I got home (about 15 minutes later), his reaction had progressed to the point where his face and feet were starting to swell up and he was starting to wheeze, so off we went to the Beverly Hospital ER – 10 minutes away.
They admitted him right away and gave him shots of epinephrine and an antihistamine, hooked him up to a bunch of monitors and started an IV (which took *a lot* of tries, poor little guy!), by the time the IV was in, the swelling was almost entirely gone, he was breathing fine and the hives had disappeared. They gave him some prednisolone & zantac through the IV and sent us off in an ambulance (no siren) to Children’s in Boston for overnight observation (at this point, Chad went home to get an overnight bag put together and met us at Children’s…)
We were pre-admitted and went straight up to our room. After explaining what had happened so far and answering a bunch of questions (many times over for all the different nurses, doctors and specialists who were taking care of us), we settled in for our stay. Justin was a perfect patient – smiling and flirting with everyone and incredibly patient with all the poking, prodding and medicine giving. He was also perfectly healthy while we were there, with no recurrences of the reaction (yay!) and we were discharged late Wednesday afternoon.
We should get the results of the blood work tomorrow (Friday) which will give us a general idea of what he’s allergic to, although the current assumption is that it is the cow’s milk in the formula he had. We’ll go back in a month for a skin test to get a better idea of what foods we need to avoid in the future. In the meantime, both Justin and I are avoiding a bunch of common allergens and anything he or I ate during the 24 hours before the reaction. We also have an EpiPen Jr., just in case.
A great big thanks to the ER team at Beverly (Dr. Gruskin, all the nurses that took care of us, and the singing Pediatric IV team), the Lyons EMTs, and everyone on 9E at Children’s, especially Jowell (our nurse) Drs. Hoppa & Hartmann, Dr. Stutius from Allergy/Immunology, and Jill, from the playroom – Justin loves his new blanket and ball!
Here’s a pic of Justin relaxed and getting ready for bed last night:
Glad to be home!
