December, month of surprises

It was a normal day on the lives of the Noel family, it was Wednesday, I had to be at work at six, there was no school because of a teacher-in-service day, so I went home right after work.

Before we all headed out to church for Adventurer Club, my stomach was feeling sick, I could not keep foods down and by the end of the night, I had a headache.

Thursday came and I felt worse, I went to work for a couple of hours and decided to go home to rest.  Feeling a bit better, I went back to work on Friday but my throat started hurting.  By the time we got home, all of us had sore throats.

On Saturday, we thought it was best for us to miss the church service and stayed home to take care of ourselves.  Sunday was the same, we were sick and tired, tired and sick.  It was a long weekend.

We kept the kids from school on Monday, their throats were hurting too much and we took them to the doctor but since they didn't have any fever the doctor told us to continue on giving the kids ibuprofen and we did. Not knowing what was going to happen.

When we got home from the doctor we made the kids take naps so they could feel better.  Night came and before bedtime I gave them ibuprofen for their sore throats but they weren't really sleepy, I left their room and within thirty minutes I heard them talking.  When I went to check on them, the light was off and Nana said, with a scratchy voice, "Mommy, my eyes are itching".  When I turned the lights on, I was in shock, her face was so swollen that I could barely see her eyes.  We immediately gave her Benadryl and waited for twenty minutes, but the swelling did not go down.  We took her to the emergency room and there they gave her medicine to open the airways as she was having a difficult time breathing.  

We were there for over two hours, just waiting for her to be better.  Those hours seemed to go by very slowly.  She was tired and not feeling too good.  It was killing me to see her like that. Finally, the swelling was gone, she was able to breath better, I could see her eyes again.

Nana has so many food allergies that we are very careful with what she eats.  We knew that this anaphylactic reaction was not caused by a food allergen, the doctor suspected that the ibuprofen might have caused her to have this allergic reaction.  That was, after all, the last thing we gave her before she went to bed.

How could someone who's taken ibuprofen before suddenly become severely allergic to it? I don't understand.  Because of this, now Nana has to have an epipen jr. with her wherever she goes.

When we got home we threw away the rest of the ibuprofen.  I know that there are many parents out there whose children have severe allergies and therefore, they must carry an epipen with them at all times.

Since we had a long night on Monday, we kept Nana home on Tuesday.  She was feeling better and we all went back to school and work on Wednesday.  But when we got home from Adventurer Club, I was so sick.  I coughed all night, spiked up a fever, had chest pain and headache.

Wes made me stay home and made me an appointment with the doctor.  I had lost my voice and we had to communicate through signs.  After he saw me, his diagnosis was pneumonia.  I am, now, on antibiotics and cough syrup with codeine.  I have been sleeping a lot, but also get waken up a lot because of the cough.

This week has been tough, and I really can't wait for it to be over.  At least, I know that once I am done with the antibiotics, I am going to be better, but with Nana, she's going to have to carry the epipen with her.