~Charlene's Web~: An Allergic Reaction From Hell

Good morning.

Well what a night we had. Yesterday was fabulous. Hubby and I had just hunkered down for some serious darts when the kids came in from skating. Yes! They did make a rink at the park this year! I had just cracked open my first beer, first beer in quite some time, and was warming up. It was a glorious winter day. All was right with the world. Little R comes in the door saying, I think I have allergies. She kept complaining that her eyes were itchy and then she was getting itchy all over. We told her to grab a quick shower. That was when she noticed an ugly rash forming on her body and called me in to have a look at it. Yes, something was wrong. Then I saw her back! The whole top half of her back was one big welt. I told Hubby we have to take her to the hospital, something is wrong. After dropping her friend off at home, we FLEW to the hospital. On the way there she started having trouble breathing. When we got there, it was kind of busy, there was someone in with the triage nurse, I couldn't wait. After a minute of standing there where they could see us and being ignored, I went over and interupted them, saying "excuse me, my daughter is having some sort of allergic reaction here". A nurse came out right away and looked at her and they took her in right away, without getting her name or health card or anything. The doctor looked at her right away. Yes she was definately having a severe allergic reaction and he ordered 2 shots, one of Benadryl and one of Epinephrine. Getting the needles was the most traumatic part of it for Little R. I was amazed how quickly it worked. Within minutes all her hives and welts and itching was gone. They made us stay for several hours because apparently, rarely, people can have an adverse reaction to the Epinephrine which affects the heart, so they had to keep an eye on her. They had her hooked up to a heart monitor and other stuff, which freaked her out of course. It was all very freaky, this has never happened before. The worst part for me is, we have no idea what she is allergic to! We have no clue what set this off. They told us the next time will be 10 times worse and after that she will be in serious trouble (I thought she was in serious trouble this time). They finally sent us on our way with a prescription for an Epi Pen and instructions to get her to our family doctor for allergy testing. The whole thing was very scarey.

Before we left the house we put Edibles in our bedroom with the door closed, just to avoid any grief of coming home and finding him torn to shreds compliments of Bear. They've been improving a little with each day, but its still too soon to be leaving them alone like that, and we had no idea how long we would be gone.

Earlier in the day, Hubby took the snowblower to the driveway and I walked around taking pictures, until the batteries in the camera died. It was so beautiful, all the trees were covered in frosty ice. I did manage to get a couple of good shots out of it.

How does such a perfect, harmonious, fabulous day turn into a nightmare in a heartbeat? Ah well, such is life. Little R is ok now. We all slept in, so she missed the school bus and will be staying home, and I missed getting the garbage out, I heard the truck going by just as I was getting up, ugh. First time in a long time he has beat me to it lol.

Heres a couple of the pics I took yesterday...