Three Signs and You're Out!

Today's post is brought to you by the number 3.

Three for the number of trips we have had to make to the hospital after allergic reactions.  Three for the number of times that something/someone sent me a warning of something wrong.

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The past few months have been a series of ups and downs.  Whose life isn't, right? And we all have those times when the lows seem to sink a bit lower, when you feel kicked when you're already down. 

It seemed like several times within the last 6 months that I couldn't get every member of our family to be healthy. Someone was always sick, and it wasn't always Monk.  His brother and sister had their fair share of fevers, colds, and such. But it was days like the morning that followed our second hospital visit, the one were we didn't get treated (see full story here), that really brought me to my breaking point.

After a night of staying up watching my youngest to make sure that he didn't have a secondary reaction, I relished sitting alone in my office, only as a second to taking a long nap. So I gladly left Monk with his babysitter and dropped the kids at school, only to be called back to the school office within the hour to pick up Punkin, who had vomited in class.  Weeks, months of shortened days, of missed days, of work not getting finished. It's the life of a mother, but this mother was done.

I was spent and exhausted.  Feeling defeated, I took her home, relieved the sitter and fell to my knees. "If you have something to tell me, please just take out a billboard!" Some days wold just go easier if He would just spell things out.

I asked for a sign. In truth I wanted it 20 feet tall and hanging just off the interstate, and maybe that was all I was willing to see.

Numero Uno
That Wednesday morning began as they all do, with no billboard propped up at the foot of my bed to tell of me of auspicious things to come, so I woke up and went to get dressed. I pulled a shirt from my closet, the same shirt that I wore on the day that we had to take Monk to the hospital for the first time. That voice in the back of my head, the one so often downplayed, said not to wear it because of its previous affiliation. I hadn't worn the shirt since that day. But it was only a shirt, and it would be silly to wear something else, right?

Second Chances
Fast forward a few hours and the kids are at school, leaving Monk with me to do the grocery shopping. We only needed a few things, but one of them was milk.

Monk has been diagnosed with a milk allergy since he was around 8-9 months old. I had begun to suspect that the milk allergy was getting worse and not better so we contact tested him in April. Basically this means that the allergist put milk on her finger and touched him with it. Below is the picture of that days reactions. The two bottom-right reactions are milk extract and regular milk, just brushed on the skin, not pricked. The result: Monk is contact allergic to dairy. He can't be touched by it.

The allergist suggested that we buy the kids cups with lids for when they drink milk, reducing the amount of milk spillage during the ever-present accidents. But we could still have milk in the house and continue to drink it? As long as we are careful. (Did you catch that last sentence?)

Back to the point...

Checking off my list, we made it through the store and the register. As I scanned my groceries I had a sudden feeling of massive anxiety come over me.  You know the kind of anxiety that ties you up in knots and renders you helpless. The kind that makes you could swear that someone you love is in danger.  I quickly thought about calling my kids school to check on them and call the hubby's work. Scenarios of the school on lock down or fire in an office building ran through my head.

I jump to extreme conclusions quite often. The hubby has on several occasions said that I needed the "jump to conclusions mat" from Office Space (actually, they apparently sell them!). Given my propensity for panicking, I talked myself down from the cliff, bought my milk and left the store.

Strike Three
With Monk down for his afternoon nap, I decided I could treat myself to a snack. Option 1: frozen coffee (aka, milk with caffeine free white chocolate flavored instant coffee mixed in) or option 2: smoothie.  With 10+ lbs of baby still clinging to my thighs I stood before the fridge arguing the finer points of going the smoothie route (less calories, fulfilling my veggie/fruit servings for the day, non-diary). The voice returned, urging me toward the frozen pineapple and kale, but again, it lost out and was shoved back into the recesses of my cobwebbed mind.

I'm Out
My hour of peace and child-free time flies by quickly and when Monk wakes up I don't even think about my glass of half-drunken coffee/milk. Given my child's innate spidy-sense for finding food, it isn't longer than 5-10 minutes when he finds my cup and dumps it on his head in an attempt to drink some.

I have no idea if any actually goes into his mouth, but everywhere it hits him begins to get covered in hives and I notice blood running down from his ear, where his eczema spots have opened up. I call our allergist immediately and sit on the phone with her nurse, describing every 2-3 minutes the state of the hives, and when it become clear that they are spreading and will soon cover his whole body, she tells me to hang up, administer the Epi Pen and call 911. All of which I do.

Trip three to the ER.

Hindsight
Looking back as we sat in the ER for a few hours to ensure that the reaction had passed, I realized that I was given a sign three time, essentially, a billboard. There is a reason that they say that "hindsight is 20/20" and I can't spend my days looking back on should've, would've, could've, but I do know that I will be burning that shirt and listening to my gut a bit more closely from now on.