Pfew, it's already sunday night. I feel like a lot happened in the past few days and Thursday seems so long ago.
Thursday night, we fed Ethan some rice cereal as usual, but mixed it with formula. We had never given him any formula until now, and it was only for a convenience (because if you make rice cereal with breast milk, the milk breaks down something in the cereal that it gets runny as you feed him). I should have known better, and feed him only one spoon full and waited. But I didn't. So he finished his 2 oz formula mixed with 1/4 cup rice cereal like he usually does. As soon as he was done eating, I noticed that his cheeks and chins had little red bumps. He had gotten those twice before, and as soon as I wipe his face really good, they usually go away. So we knew that he had a little contact allergy to cereal. But it didn't go away. In fact, it got worse. All his chins and cheeks were so red and puffy, and his nose was runny and was a lot droolier than usual. I knew immediately that it was allergic reaction, so I called the nurse on call at the hospital. The nurse asked me if his breathing was ok, so I said he was breathing a little heavier and it looked harder to breath. She asked if his tong was swollen, so I checked it, and it sure was a little swollen. She recommended calling 911 instead of taking him to the hospital by ourselves. We called 911 and EMS came, but by then his face was getting better. He had thrown up once while we waited for the ambulance, which they said helped. So we rejected the transportation and decided to watch carefully at home.
About half an hour after the EMS left, the area around his eyes started puffy. It kept getting worse, and this time it was spreading all over his body, so we decided to drive down to the hospital. By the time we were able to be treated, all his joints like elbows and knees, and under his arm were all red, covered with hives. His eyes were completely shut with puffiness. But his lungs were clear and they were not too worried. They gave him some benedryl and waited to see if it got better. It seemed to help a little bit, and he didn't have any allergic reaction to the medicine, so they sent us home at 11pm. I woke up a few times through the night and checked on him, but he slept so good and by the morning his face was pretty cleared up.
We think that he is allergic to the cow's milk protein in formula, and the reaction came in two waves; contacts and then system. Now we know to be careful with food when we give him for the first time, and what to do if something happen again. It scared all of us (mostly Jeff and I) though, and I hope we won't have to go through this again.
We had Kate and Will over on Friday. It was the first time we hung out with them after their wedding. It was fun as usual. We played 30 minutes of "Friends" Scene it, then a game of the Settlers. I didn't remember that the Settlers took a long time (apparently the board was pretty pathetic this time), so I don't know if it was a fair trade of some "chick game" to "guy game", but I actually enjoyed playing both. It helped that it was my second or third time playing the Settlers and I started to understand a little bit. We then sat in the hot tub.
Saturday night we had our sunday school's second annual theme party. This year the theme was "the biggest sports fan". Unfortunately it was a smaller crowd this year and the plan had to change. Originally we were planning to go to Jeff's parents' back yard and have some lawn games and bonfire. But as cold as it has been, I switched it to our house at the last minute. So we had a Wii bowling tournament instead. Well, I am a good Wii bowler, so I did get the first place. It was very close though. And afterwards we played the game called Encore, which gives you a word and you have to come up with songs with the word in it. I had never played it, but it was a fun, and a little frustrating game! There were many times I was like "I know this song has a word "girl" in it, but I don't remember where!"
We are having a relaxing day today after church. This week I am taking Wednesday off, as I have 4 days of training the following week (in Indy!). I am a little nervous to leave Ethan home with Jeff for four days, but at the same time I am looking forward to eating good food in Indy :-) My coworker, Amy, and I are planning to go get a haircut there, too. We'll see how it goes.
