Saturday, March 26, 2011: Hospital corners

Gavin went to the hospital yesterday. He had a bad allergic reaction after eating a couple bites of a vegan hippie bar with cashews in it. He broke out in hives, his nose started to run constantly and as soon as I finished leaving a message for his doctor his eyes started to swell shut. I took him to the emergency room. Laura went with me. After some Benadryl and prednisone the swelling started to go down and the hives went away. It was super scary, but his airway never started to close or anything so that's good. We spent several hours in the hospital and got home around 1 p.m.

This picture was taken after the medicine started to work (he is no longer hysterical at this point and the swelling has started to go down). He looks cute even with a puffy face. But I don't ever want to see this puffy version of Gavin again. The only nuts he's allowed to have for the time being are the ones in his pants. The doctor wrote him a prescription for an EpiPen should this happen again.

I'll admit I was freaked out. His face went from zero to "holy shit!" in minutes. Driving to the hospital I felt complete and utter road rage. It felt like everyone was doing 10 under the speed limit. Gavin was crying hysterically in the back seat. If I had Inspector Gadget arms I would have reached through their windows and punched them in the face. When we got to the emergency room I took Gavin in and I had to go through a metal detector like I was at the airport. Gavin's screaming and puffing up like crazy and there's a guy there asking, "Do you have any metal in your pockets? A cell phone, keys, change..." It didn't take a long time, but it did take time, which is not something I felt I had any to spare at that moment. When I took Gavin up to the desk a guy in scrubs sat up and said, "Allergic reaction?" and I said, "I think so," and he said, "I'll take him back while you get set up here with the paperwork," and he whisked Gavin away. Which I hated. Which Gavin hated even more. Since he was born at this same hospital he was already in the system, but when they first asked me his name I came really close to losing it and managed to choke out his name and how to spell it. "Hold it together, Mom," the lady said. She was nice about it, though. But what freaked me out was the look on the guy's face when he stood up and asked if Gavin was having an allergic reaction. He looked kind of freaked. Which made me feel really freaked since I'm assuming this guy works in an emergency room and has probably seen some intense stuff. So I think, "Gavin's gonna die," but thankfully (spoiler alert) he doesn't.

When the guy comes to lead me back to Gavin only a couple minutes have elapsed but I can hear Gavin screaming like a mad man. He is super scared and pissed and uncomfortable and when I get to him I have to help take his clothes off. He's wearing his footie PJs with sharks on them and a striped onesie. I have a hard time getting them off since he's not cooperating. They took a rectal temperature and I don't know how much he hated that since he was already pushing his "I hate this" levels into the red. When the doctor looked at his ears and throat he said, "All done," in the saddest way possible, as if he was begging. He was, of course, not all done. The doctor asked if he'd eaten anything new and I said, "Cashews" and he said, "Ah, cashews," in a tone that I read to mean, "You are the world's worst mother ever in the history of the universe since everyone knows you don't give cashews to a child this young." Except I didn't know. I mean, he's been eating peanut butter for a year now and he's had almond butter and has never had any problems. Until now.

After his medicine kicked in he fell asleep on my chest. That part was quite wonderful, though a far too steep price to pay to have Gavin cuddle up on me. He woke up when I had to pee and tried to transfer him over to Laura. It's much easier to wrangle a sleeping baby than a wide-awake baby inside of a children's emergency ward. Just a little tip for you.

At one point a woman with a clip board came back and asked me to sign consenting to treatment. Which I did without thinking twice. After all, I'm his mom and I want him to be treated or I wouldn't have brought him to the hospital, I would have just stayed at home and prayed over his rapidly swelling face or something. A short while later the woman came back and told me that since I wasn't really his mom my signature didn't count and they were going to need verbal consent from Stacy. She was super, super nice about it. But it still sucked. She said if we had adoption papers we should keep a copy on file. When I said, "We're not allowed to do that here," meaning I'm not allowed to legally adopt my own son in Michigan since Stacy is his biological mother. "Or guardianship papers," she added. Which we also don't have. We have some papers, but they don't establish me as his legal mom. They do communicate Stacy's desire for me to act as his legal mom when I need to, though. It's a paper Stacy has to sign every 6 months so I'm not sure how keeping it on file in the hospital would work. But I should have had it with me. Needless to say, there were a lot of things I forgot that morning including the diaper bag, which I think even has a copy of this paper in it. But like I said, the woman at the hospital was really nice about it. Still, it sucked.

Did I mention I already felt terrible? Although Laura assured me that I wasn't a bad mom. As did Lisa. As did Jamie. As did Stacy. But you don't have to really stretch your imagination to wonder how shitty it feels to watch your kid's face swell up like Shrek knowing that it's all because of something you did. I mean, I suppose I could blame Gavin for accepting the little bites of LÄRABAR I gave him, but I am pretty sure those under two count as minors in most states.

I'm happy to report that his face is not swollen at all any more and he's doing really well and is almost 100% back to his happy Gavin self. I say "almost" because he had a rough nap today. He's still on the prednisone and Stacy said one of the possible side effects was trouble sleeping (she read the info from the pharmacy, I didn't). So who knows, maybe that's why. Or maybe it's just because yesterday was such a fucked up day. I know I was exhausted but still not able to sleep easily.

Gavin loves medication. I'm afraid he's kind of a child junkie. He actually requests Tylenol by name ("Ty") and after he gets a dose he always says, "Mas." Granted, the only meds he's ever had aside from shots have been sickly sweet grape (yuck), cherry (double yuck,) or bubblegum (yuck to infinity) flavors. He's never had candy and we don't feed him many super sweet things. I'd say the sweetest thing he has on a regular basis is fruit. He's had cake before but it's been a long time (his first birthday may even be the last time). So while it isn't difficult to give Gavin medicine, it is a little disconcerting how eagerly he gulps it down. Definitely going to have to hide that stuff.