Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Enough Excitement For One Day
A little after 1pm today, and work was going fine, when my mobile phone rang. On the other end was Aidan's teacher. Seemed he was having an allergic reaction, probably due to soy from a KFC meal they'd had at lunch. Only thing was, it was sounding much worse than normal, and since he is anaphylactic to peanuts, I rushed right over to the school and then took him to the ER at the nearest hospital.
Say what you will about the Canadian health care system, as soon as I told the triage nurse that he was anaphylactic and that this was a likely allergic reaction, Aidan was hustled in to a bed and within minutes a doctor and several nurses were swarming around him, hooking him up to an IV shunt for medicine (Benadryl, epinephrine) and saline solution. He was shivering from shock and is now covered in scratches from long fingernails and a nasty itch, but within an hour everything had settled down. Only thing was, they needed to keep him for another three hours to make sure that all the allergens had cleared his system. And sure enough, several times while we were there he would flare up briefly with a rash of some sort, but never as itchy as before. And now we're home, and safe, and I'm feeling somewhat chastened.
When the school phoned, my suggestion was that Aidan be given a dose of Benadryl, which turned out to be right. However, I really should have pressed for him to be given a shot of his epipen. As the doctor said, the epinephrine in the dose won't do him any harm, and in the end it may save his life. So, lesson learned. The good thing, though, is that we're all home, and aside from the scratches and being exhausted, Aidan is just fine.
Say what you will about the Canadian health care system, as soon as I told the triage nurse that he was anaphylactic and that this was a likely allergic reaction, Aidan was hustled in to a bed and within minutes a doctor and several nurses were swarming around him, hooking him up to an IV shunt for medicine (Benadryl, epinephrine) and saline solution. He was shivering from shock and is now covered in scratches from long fingernails and a nasty itch, but within an hour everything had settled down. Only thing was, they needed to keep him for another three hours to make sure that all the allergens had cleared his system. And sure enough, several times while we were there he would flare up briefly with a rash of some sort, but never as itchy as before. And now we're home, and safe, and I'm feeling somewhat chastened.
When the school phoned, my suggestion was that Aidan be given a dose of Benadryl, which turned out to be right. However, I really should have pressed for him to be given a shot of his epipen. As the doctor said, the epinephrine in the dose won't do him any harm, and in the end it may save his life. So, lesson learned. The good thing, though, is that we're all home, and aside from the scratches and being exhausted, Aidan is just fine.
Labels: Aidan, allergies, hospitals
// posted by Derryl Murphy @ 5:09 PM 
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