Cookie-Day Smookie-Day!

Sunday was the annual Cook Girls Cookie Day. We have them every year. They are a tradition started years ago with Auntley. She would make dozens and dozens of cookies with us, and I have no clue who she thought would eat all of them. I still remember this chocolate cookie we would make that was frosted - yes, frosted - with more chocolate. Cookie Day is a Christmas Tradition I look forward to every year. Since Gracie and Luke are mobile now, I was really excited to see what they would get themselves into on Cookie Day.

However, it was not to be. Sunday, instead of making Christmas cookies with the Fam, I spent the day in the Emergency Room cuddling my little man and waiting for the epinephrine to get to work. I have NO idea what happened. I don't know if something bit him or if he ate something I did not see. All I know is that Gracie, Lukie and I were taking a nap on Nana's couch and all of a sudden he woke up screaming. He wouldn't let me put his binky back into his mouth and he kept trying to hit me. Eddie had just sat down next to us and said, "What's the matter with Lukie's eye?"

I pulled Lukie away from me and saw that his left eyelid was swelling out of control. I looked at him all over and saw a white bump under his left ear (which turned out to be a hive, but I thought it was a bite). I started to panic and tore open the backpack to look for the Benedryl I always keep with us. NONE! I cannot tell you how terrified I was. Eddie grabbed his keys and headed over to Walgreens to get some Benedryl while I held a screaming Lukie and tried to keep a now screaming Gracie calm.

I managed to get some Ibuprofen down Lukie's throat. It was the only thing I could think of while we waited for Eddie. He got back rather quickly and about 11 minutes after we first noticed Lukie's eye, we got the Benedryl into him. At that point, both of his eyes were swollen shut, his tongue was swollen and he tissue under his tongue had swelled so that it was pushing his tongue up toward the roof of his mouth. He was breathing fine; no wheezing or anything like that. I called the advice nurse and she calmed me down and walked me through the check list. As soon as she heard that his tongue was swollen, she told me to take him to the doctor. Problem: We were 1 hour from home, and there isn't a single blasted urgent care (that takes my insurance) for 30 miles.

Lukie seemed to be calming down and his eyes actually seemed to be getting a little better. So we drove up to Aunt Bec's house for Cookie Day and I sat next to him with my hand on his chest to make sure he was breathing properly. When we arrived everyone was stunned by the way he looked (you could not recognize him - Eddie was trying to say that he looked like Rocky Balboa - I was not amused). It took very little convincing to get me to take him to the emergency room, even though he had taken off out to the backyard to play. Nana and I took him down there and the triage nurse put us in a bed really quickly. In the end, he had 2 shots of epi ( I always wanted to say that! epi - epinephrine) and an oral steroid before the swelling in his eyes really started to go down. His tongue was the first to start to deflate and that is when I started to calm down. They kept us there for 3 hours to make sure he was okay.

By the time we got back to Cookie Day, he had hives all over his body. The doctor had warned me this would happen, so we stripped him down to his diaper and let him run all over the house Apparently, steroids turn little kids into maniacs. Right. He ran all over Aunt Bec's house chasing kids and eating anything anyone would hand him. Eddie laughed that he had the munchies. Again, I was not amused. By the time Lukie was done, he passed out in the car and slept through the entire night. I slept next to him and frequently checked that he was still breathing.

Today, we had a little eyelid swelling episode, but Benedryl cleared it up. Dr. A saw Lukie today and she was really worried about him. We now have an oral steroid he needs to take for 3 days, and our Dr. A has ordered 2 epi pens to use in case this ever happens again. He also had blood drawn so that they can see if they can figure out what happened. We still have no clue what happened, but I really hope the blood test will tell us.

Lucas, if you are 35 years old and reading this, you need to thank your Guardian Angel who whispered in the ears of the 20 people in line in front of Daddy at Walgreens. Every single one of them let him skip in front of them so he could get back to you.

Oh, and if you are 35 years old and reading this, you had better hug me today, really hard. I lost 8 years of my life being scared for you and I need all the love I can get!