Two weeks ago, Gabriel, my almost 5 year old, got stung by a bee. At first I thought 'no big deal', right? Oh my, did I find out how wrong I was!
The morning started off by a friend of mine coming over so her and I could trade massages down in my office. Josh was watching the boys like he normally does when I'm working on people, when our neighbor came over to bail our field. Josh needed to go out to move one of Gabriel's soccer goals so that our neighbor could get his tractor through our back driveway and although Eli decided to stay inside and watch Mr. Bean, Gabriel decided to go out with his Daddy and help out.
Now, Gabriel hasn't played with his soccer goals much this summer. Josh made these soccer goals back in May out of pallet wood, and after soccer was done with in June, they haven't played much ball... well, at least with the goals involved. They would kick the ball around in the driveway and forgo trying to make any goals. Which, in the end, turned out to be a really, REALLY good thing!
Why is it a great thing my son decided to stop kicking goals with his soccer ball? Because, he probably would have kicked the ball right into the nest of hornets that decided the inside of the soccer goal was a good place to live. See, when Josh moved the soccer goal for our neighbor to get his tractor through, he actually didn't notice that there was a nest of hornets in there. He moved the goal and put it a few feet away when he heard Gabriel (who was standing about 5 feet away) scream. Josh turned around and saw Gabriel pull the hornet off of his eyebrow that had stung him, and by the time he looked at the now moved soccer goal, hornets were starting to swarm around the bottom of it. Thank God for Josh's quick thinking, he grabbed Gabriel and they ran inside as fast as they could and were able to avoid getting stung anymore.
*a few days later we went out to kill the nest... these were the buggers that stung Gabriel
*and their nest
I was downstairs, working on my friend, Melissa, when I heard them come in, and could hear Gabriel screaming. I just assumed that everything was ok, Gabriel is no stranger to getting random bruises/injuries and I knew Josh could take care of him. But I started to wonder when the crying didn't stop, and soon, within a probably five minutes (if even), Josh brought Gabriel downstairs where I was working so I could see him. By the time I saw him, so about 5 minutes after he was stung, Gabriel's whole eyebrow and eye lid were swollen. I told Josh to watch him since this was his first bee sting, to put some ice on the sting, and I would be up in a few minutes after I was done with Melissa... at this point, I still didn't think too much about it. Of course I felt bad for my son, but I didn't think he was going to be allergic or anything like that.
I went up to check on Gabriel maybe 10-15 minutes after they had come down to see me. I looked at his face and about had a heart attack. His entire right side of his face was huge. He could hardly open his eye, and I noticed he was just being really quiet, and taking some odd breaths. He wasn't wheezing, or breathing quickly, but it was this slow, struggled breathing. So I went down to talk to Melissa, whose son was allergic to bees, and she came up to look at him. I think she looked at him for a whole of 30 seconds before saying 'you need to give him benadryl... now'. So we did, and we waited.
We checked him 30 minutes later and he was already breathing easier! I was so relieved! I thought 'we are out of the woods! Awesome!'.... but again, I was so wrong.
We were out of the woods... for a little bit. Gabriel had actually come down to see me while I got my massage, and the swelling in his face had gone down by half, and he was kinda stinkery... which is good, because that's normal for him :) But after my husband left to go to his brothers house, and Melissa had left for home, Gabriel, Eli and I were having a good time when all the sudden, Gabriel just changed. He came up to me, all quiet again, and had the slow struggled breathing. His swelling was also coming back, which was right when the Benadryl was starting to wear off... I wasn't really sure what to do. So I gave him more Benadryl and then I called Urgent Care.
*this is Gabriel after the swelling had gone down significantly. I would say the swelling had been at least double, if not triple... Believe me, this picture is way better then how he looked originally :(
I got a certain doctor on call, that I didn't particularly like... and he didn't like me either (we kinda had a disagreement two weeks prior). We'll call that doctor 'Dr. A' for niceness sake (bet you can't guess what 'A' stands for ;) Mwhahahaha). I told Dr. A what was happening with Gabriel, about how bad the swelling in his face had been, the hard time breathing, and how when the Benadryl wore off, everything came right back. Dr. A lived up to the 'A' and was a rude *******... He told me that swelling in the face to twice the normal size was normal after a bee sting, and since Gabriel didn't have a high pitched wheeze, he was just fine. He said if I wanted too, I could give him more Benadryl (twice the amount I was giving him), but that Gabriel would be just fine, and, I didn't even need to check on him in the middle of the night or watch him anymore. ... .... .... Ummmmm...... Ok, I sooooo did not have peace about that. My son may not have had a high pitched wheeze, but I have asthma, I know better that having a hard time breathing can be a slow struggled breath, not only a high pitched wheeze.
So, that night we got up and checked on Gabriel in the middle of the night. He seemed fine... He was breathing, but we couldn't really see his face because he had it shoved into the pillow, but he sounded pretty good. So we went back to bed and waited.
Morning came, and Eli woke up first like he always does, and we just waited... and waited... and then I got nervous and I went up to check on Gabriel. He was sleeping, but his breathing was really slow. Then he woke up and tried to breath normal and he just couldn't. Not only that, but his face that we couldn't see in the middle of the night, it was so swollen, and the swelling was spreading across the bridge of his nose and into the other side of his face. I put my ear up to his chest and it sounded like a whistle inside... wheezing. I looked at Josh and told him to listen, and within a few minutes we decided that we needed to bring him to the ER. We gave him more Benadryl, packed up, and headed out.
*poor guy's eye was swollen almost shut again, and you can see how big the right side is compared to the left, and how it's going across the bridge of his nose to the other side.
It seemed that Benadryl worked wonders, but every time it wore off, within minutes Gabriel's swelling would come back and he couldn't breath. So we wanted to get something stronger for him, something where we weren't going to have to wonder 'is my son going to stop breathing tonight in his sleep...'
On the way to the hospital, I told my husband 'you know what I'm worried about? I'm worried that they are going to wait so long to see him that the Benadryl is going to make him look/appear 'normal', and that they are going to say 'oh he's just fine' and send us home. Or I'm worried we're going to get Dr. A again and he's just going to be a jerk like he was last night.'
So we got to the ER, the first lady that saw Gabriel about freaked out and said 'I'm going to check if they can take him ASAP.' But they couldn't (a sever case had come in right before us), so we waited. About 20 minutes later a nurse called us back to a room, looked at Gabriel and said that he didn't look so great, that he was more then likely going to need extra meds and an epi pen kit... and then we waited more. Another nurse came out and looked at Gabriel, worried about how he looked and said if the Benadryl was wearing off again, to tell them ASAP, but that there was only one doctor on call, so we were going to have to wait. So we did... for three hours we waited. By that time, the Benadryl had more then enough time to kick in to it's full effect. The swelling had significantly gone down and he was breathing just fine.
We were told we were going to get this nice lady doctor, who was finally free, but who finally walks in the room? Dr. A. Apparently, the ER was so busy, at the last minute they called him in, and we got to be his first patients... oh goody. Dr. A looked at Gabriel, didn't even ask me any questions, and started his same speech as the night before that Gabriel was just fine and that his swelling wasn't anything to even sneeze at and that his breathing was just fine. I told Dr. A about the day before, and the morning, about how Gabriel looked and about the breathing, and Dr. A didn't believe a word and said that it was all normal. I...was...so...mad!!!!! Yeah, because not being able to breath is normal in some off part of this world... @$$&013!!!!!!! I had to argue with Dr. A for 10 minutes before he finally wrote Gabriel a prescription for prednizone and an epi pen.
You want to know the kicker? On the way to the pharmacy to get Gabriel's meds, the Benadryl wore off and Gabriel was sitting in the back of the car and said 'Mama... (wheeze)... if you hear... (wheeze)... something back here... (wheeze)... it's me.... not breathing (wheeze)...' Talk about me freaking out again, loading him up with meds, and running as fast as my pregnant bum could into the pharmacy to get the prescriptions filled. I looked at Josh and said 'yeah, and Dr. A just told us he was completely fine... my @$$.'
Finally, with the prednizone in his system, mixed with Benadryl, Gabriel was finally ok. He was still swollen for a few days afterwards, or would have red circles under his eyes, but the wear off side effects that were happening when Benadryl would wear off stopped, and he didn't have anymore breathing episodes. The new meds made him a bit crabby/moody... it was like he didn't know how to handle what they were making him feel, so he would just freak out/be naughty/lash out/hide ect. He was definitely a different kid when the meds were in his system, but I could handle anything, as long as I knew he was going to be ok!
I am so glad to have my normal little boy back! He's back to his happy, stinkery, hyper little self and I am so thankful! I never in a million years thought I would have a child who was allergic to bees, but I do. And after sleepless nights wondering if my baby is going to stop breathing, or having to watch him struggle, just to get a breath, I can say I wouldn't wish this on any child or parent. It's hard, and it's scary!
I'm just happy to have this little munchkin back!
