Swollen

It was a scary Sunday evening at the Balas house. And we're still scratching our heads trying to figure it out. I was out Christmas shopping most of the day and Phil took the kids to Costco. They had a few samples there and enjoyed themselves. Phil took them to Kelly's for lunch, which neither of them really ate, preferring to run like banshees and generally frustrate their father.

So after that episode, Phil put his foot down and said no snacks until dinner ... which turned out to be quite a difficult thing since both, mostly Pip, whined all afternoon about how hungry he was. Finally 6pm rolled around and we served Kirkland brand Mac N Cheese and Orchard Select jarred peaches. Pip took a few bites of the mac and ate most of his peaches -- but we noticed he was scratching his face and had broken out in little red bumps on his cheek. Despite telling us he was STARVING all afternoon, he said he didn't want to eat anymore. We were baffled.

Over the next hour his face scratching got worse so I gave him half a tsp of Children's Benadryl and put him to bed. We watched him throughout the night and around 10:30 I got concerned. His face was very puffy and getting worse. I called our pedi's triage line and they advised to take him to the hospital. Luckily Winchester saw us right away -- we never even sat in the waiting area. He breathing was not effected and is oxygen levels were fine, but his face told another story. We were sent home on 4 hour double doses of benadryl and told to sleep with him so we could keep a close eye on him.

Poor Pip was very cranky about being woken and dragged to the hospital, but was a champ the whole time. He submitted to all their tests with a good disposition, wondering why they didn't give him a toy when it was all over. I broke down and got him Oreo cookies from the vending machine and juice when we got home.

Here's a picture of our little man at 12:30 am that night ...



The swelling got worse during the night ... to the point where he woke up crying at 4:00 am because his eyes were swollen shut and he couldn't open them. :( The next morning we were at the pedi first thing and got an oral steroid to take along with the double benadryl doses. That seemed to make a little progress and by the end of the day he was acting, although still not looking, like his normal self. He actually wanted to go to the field so I trekked over there with him and Vivie and played duck duck goose and Santa search for over an hour.

It took probably 3 days to fully subside and then his face was so chapped it looked almost like he had a beard! Poor thing. No one has any idea what could have caused this since he has eaten tons of man n cheese all his life and peaches are a favorite. We're going to an allergist Jan 3rd for testing and maybe we'll get some answers!