Please, let there be no more surprises this year!

For those of you that follow my social media, you will know that Noah had a little trip to hospital last night.

He has had a hazelnut allergy forever, which was the cause of his eczema when he was a baby (not made worse by me feeding him Nutella on toast weekly obviously). This was confirmed by a skin allergy test when he was 3.

However he has never had it managed by the doctors etc, so when I called them earlier this year to ask if we were ever going to get a follow up, I was shocked to know that they had no idea what I was talking about. They had no record that he had been for a skin allergy test, that he had a hazelnut allergy or that we just managed it with piriton.

We were sent for another skin allergy test and were told he doesn't really have a nut allergy and the hazelnut one had reduced so much that they could do a nut challenge on the ward to see if he can eat it in a controlled environment.

Then, Covid happened.

So, we've been allowing him to taste certain things:

Peanut butter ✓

Almond ✓

Brazil nuts......... ❌

From him eating the chocolate covered brazil nut to Tony ringing 999, he thinks it was about 12 minutes. He had 'double dosed' piriton into him, but it hadn't touched it. 

I was at work and got a text to say "Noah has got a Brazil nut allergy as well" quickly followed by "Looks like the Brazil nut allergy is worse than the hazelnut allergy".

Then my phone is ringing. Whilst I'm about to give a woman a fragmin injection 😳 And Tony isn't speaking, so I'm thinking "oh my god, Noah is dead" (yes that is what your mind does when you're an anxiety ridden weirdo). Then the words "he's in the ambulance now".

I had completely missed the text message saying "I've had to call 999".

Cue me literally saying to the other midwives "I need to go, I've done the woman's obs but haven't documented them and her fragmin is waiting to go..... I'm not even getting changed".

When I got to home (luckily took me 5 mins), the ambulance was still sat outside and I was able to get straight in. His little face was all swollen, his eyes were huge, his tongue was hanging out of his mouth because it was so big and his face was purple. They said that he was swollen 3 times the size to what I was seeing and he was on his way to anaphylaxis, before they gave him the injection of antihistamine.

I managed to finally snap a photo once we were on our way to the hospital. The swelling had gone down a bit more he was looking a little more normal.

Once we were at the hospital, we could only allow one parent to come through so Tony waited outside which I felt awful about, but otherwise the hospital were amazing. They did his observations & cannulated him with an amazing lady who brought an iPad along to distract him. She talked him through every single thing that was happening and genuinely they were fabulous.

Once he was given the steroids through the cannula, he was left to lay down and given a portable DVD player so that he felt relaxed and comfortable. He literally changed in front of my eyes and the widespread rash, redness and swelling reduced so quickly.

 

Once the rash had gone and they had done his obs again, they were happy for him to leave, but they did say it will be safer to not eat any nuts at all and we must get an epipen for future. Safe to say I've already had one prescribed today!

He requested McDonalds for the way home, so we knew he was on the mend 😂 And he's acted like a celebrity today at school!

All I can say is thank goodness Tony acted so quickly and didn't mess around wondering whether he would be ok or not. The alternative ending to this situation just isn't worth thinking about. 

And I think my need for botox will be even stronger after that ordeal, because it must've aged me a few years!

Kids = stress! Fact!

Have a fun weekend all. xx