Dec '08 - Emma's Fever

I posted this separately from the monster blog because it just broke my heart. Emma has become my hypersensitive child. Her skin will break out over almost anything. It's usually not a very big deal. For example, she is allergic to cats. If she has alot of contact with the she will break out in red splotches. Whenever she runs a fever, a few days later she will usually break out in a rash.

Well, in early December she ran a fever for a day or two. Nothing big. A few days later, we were getting ready to go to the country, but I had some stuff to do first. She had a couple of spots on her, but I didn't think anything about it. She had done this before....right? So, Emma and Sarah laid down for a nap.

Two hours later, Emma woke up looking like this:

The poor baby's face was red, swollen and hard (like there was a lot of fluid in her cheek). Her eye was swelling shut at a rapid rate and her arms were covered in raised red rashes. Needless to say, I almost freaked out. Greg was in the country, so we called him and told him that we were going to take Emma to quick care. Mom came and got Sara. Stefan insisted on going with me and Em to quickcare.

I was really hoping it was just an allergic reaction, but she looked awful. Thankfully her breathing was fine. When we got to quickcare, they took one look at her and rushed her back to the doctor. He took a look at her and sent her to the emergency room. They actually called ahead. So I'm thinking, ok we'll get right in since they called ahead. YEAH RIGHT. We sat in that waiting room for over an hour. I guess they figured that since her breathing was ok, there was no real rush.This is how she looked when we finally got back to a room. Emma has a horrible fear of doctors. She had to go to the emergency room when she was 1 1/2 and it has stuck with her. Anyway, she doesn't have good veins for drawing blood. They stuck my baby in both of her arms and hands before they got what they needed. I could have hurt someone.

Finally, after 3 hours, they decided that she'd had an allergic reaction to her fever. They put her on a steroid for a week to help the swelling go down. By the time we left the emergency room, Greg had made it there. In hindsight, it was kind of funny how Emma behaved. When she gets nervous, she talks ALOT. So she told everyone that she came in contact with what they would and would not be doing. And how to do things. And how she was not going to get a shot, etc, etc.

She looked like this a week later. It took almost two weeks for everything to fade. The doctor told me that this could happen again. So now anytime she gets a fever, I will be paranoid for a week afterwards. And so will Emma.