Several months ago on a lovely, sunny Saturday afternoon, I fatefully bit into Mommy’s reamnants of a Columbia City Bakery cookie that contained, among other ingredients, walnuts.  Yes, walnuts.  These aforementioned walnuts callously contributed to yours truly breaking out in hives and a SERIOUSLY agitated epiduras.

Hey, no sweat:  It wudn’t nuthin’ a trip to Group Health’s Urgent Care couldnt get sorted.  Or perhaps a trip to Maui if my parents had their SHIZZ one notch more togethta.  But I digress… As a result of our scare, we made a trip to the allergist to see what’s up. Here are a couple images from the day:

Pet dander, grass, birch and alder tree pollen and nuts are all allergens. Cashews (number 23) are the worst followed immediately by pecans and walnuts. We now carry two EpiPens.

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Lotsa sleeping, a little eating, lotsa movies and deep love for Mommy and Daddy. Here’s post-nap bedhead:

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Daddy got the call this afternoon that I was literally falling asleep on my feet at school and sure enough, when he arrived from his adventure on the 5 he found me SOUND asleep in the company of teachers upstairs in the teacher lounge.

We trudged home and I promptly took a 4 hour nap. But not before he snapped a pic of me looking, well, miserable.

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Too many apples and cups of applesauce yesterday.  Loose in the caboose.  Wet farts.  Ring of fire.  Home from school.  Lotsa panties.

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In a flashback to the torrid affair written about here, I had a 4:15am barf session in Mommy and Daddy’s bed early this morning.

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Here is a timeline detailing the ups and downs of a challenging day and a half that started so good, went a little funny, righted itself into a super fun day with Daddy and ultimately went terribly, terribly wrong.

Thursday, 11/20
5:30pm - Drinks and appetizers at Oliver’s Twist on Phinney Ridge for a gift exchange with the Lights: Don, Amy, baby Audrey and mi amigo Henry. Mommy fed me a juice box and some Cheerios, but I was dive-bombing the black truffle-shaved popcorn with garlic butter. Yee-um!

3:00am - Woke up screaming as I had barfed the aforementioned black truffle-shaved popcorn with garlic butter all over my bed. Yee-uck!

3:45am - More barfing, more bedding.

Friday, 11/21
10:00am - Wake up late due to a harsh night

10:21am - Hit the road for a fun day with Daddy that includes a ride on the Westlake Christmas carousel, a visit to the aquarium, lunch at Taco del Mar and a play date at Ella Bailey park in Magnolia with Lynn, Marques and Brandon Abulhosn.

5:45pm - Silver arrives so Mommy and Daddy can have dinner with the Grubers and company at Machiavelli’s, their fave haunt when in Seattle.

5:46pm - Barf on Silver.

6:45pm - The parents leave

7:14pm - I fall fast asleep

8:22pm - Diarrhea in bed. Crying. Silver is a trooper. Pooper trooper.

8:46pm - Back to sleep.

9:19pm - Parents arrive home after receiving an SMS message from Silver about my shituation.

9:33pm - I continue to sleep while Mommy takes Silver home and to get some Pedialyte.

9:46pm - I shat the bed, but this time Daddy only needs to hose me down and swap out a towel that got the brown trickle.

9:58pm - I call out to Daddy to help me clean up as I made it to the toilet for another round of the Dirty D.

10:04pm - Mommy arrives home with Pedialyte. Wakes me up to comfort me and get me to drink some fizzy soda.

10:31pm - I begin to moan with serious skin discomfort. Daddy comes to my room and applies hydrocortisone to sooth the itching.

10:44pm - More moaning and extreme skin irritation. I tell Daddy I want to wash my skin. He draws an oatmeal bath and is horrified to see that my skin is red in most places and that raised welts have sprung up all over my little body. He and Mommy look in the guide our physician issues to all of his patients to see if there is any info about hives or extreme skin irritation.

10:57pm - Daddy calls the after hours answering service for Dr. Spector’s office.

11:06pm - An on-call nurse from Children’s Hospital phones; she and Daddy discuss my situation. She advises us to call 911 and to follow-up with her after the medics have done and assessment.

11:08pm - Daddy calls 911 and they dispatch a medic unit.

11:17pm - Medics arrive and begin asking questions. Mommy is swooning over the Medic named James that is directly engaging with me. I am incredibly brave and strong.

11:42pm - Medics leave by mildy suggesting we go to emergency to find out what is causing the localized allergic reaction, but also sort of hint that we’ll be fine through the night if we don’t.

11:45pm - Daddy calls Dr. Spector’s answering service to follow up with the nurse at Children’s.

11:55pm - The nurse and Daddy speak about the assessment of the medics and how I’m currently doing. She thinks that a trip to the ER is unnecessary (for now) and advises Daddy to get some Benadryl and what to watch for over the next 12 hours.

Saturday, 12/22
12:18am - Daddy arrives home from Safeway with Gatorade and Children’s Benadryl. Mommy opens the box only to find that the seal has been compromised.

12:51am - Daddy returns home again from Safeway with a new bottle of Benadryl.

3:13am - I awake and race to the toilet for a round of vomiting.

3:21am - Mommy kicks Daddy off the couch saying that she can’t deal anymore and sends him to bed with me.

7:47am - After an uncomfortable night of relentless scratching of my burning skin and repeatedly kicking Daddy, I am awake and ready to start a new day.

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Monday night my sty eye roared out of submission and developed a massive pustule by yesterday morning. It popped while at school and was an icky mess. Daddy took me to see Dr. Spector today and we left 15 minutes later with a prescription for a larger Aerochamber and prescription for 10 days worth of Amoxicillin to keep the infection from spreading.

Enough with the damn sty eye already! The pharmacist asked if I have a lot of dairy… Daddy starting thinking about whether 24 oz of milk and a serving of cheddar cheese is a lot or not. She is confident that dairy is the reason I’m having the sty issue. So for now we are going to cut out the morning and evening bottle and see what happens.

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So as those in my inner circle already know, I’ve had some problems with coughing and a very slight wheeze in the past month or so. It just so happened that the onset of my issues coincided with my 2 year check up with ye olde Dr. Spector. He’s the one that noticed my lungs sounded a bit scratchy and wasted no time prescribing two bottles worth of some Albuterol. It had an immediate impact and it seemed as if I was in the clear.

Well, on the ride home from Nana and Papa’s on Thanksgiving, I had a terrible fit of coughing that Dr. Spector says was the indicator that I had turned the corner towards a deteriorating situation. Enter Monday: A snow day from school where Daddy went to work and Mommy stayed home with yours truly. After getting me down for a nap with a fair amount of trouble, I woke up with great difficulty in breathing and had Mommy pretty panicked.

She hoppped in the car and rushed us over to Dr. Spector’s. He donned stetho and listened to what was going on inside me. I wonder if his apparatus could here the inner turmoil of my little brain trying to decide whether to give Daddy socks or underwear for Christmas. When prompted, he refused to comment. Anyway, he quickly surmised that due to inflammation my lungs were considerably collapsed and that I needed to be NEBULIZED with one ampule of Albuterol. Hell yes brother!! Bring on the airway-opening goodtime drugs!!

So fast-forward to today and I’m doing fine. The diagnosis is that I may have asthma and that I may outgrow it. Hmmm. Kind of sucks that neither of my parents have asthma and that I’m suffering from it and that I’ve got a wicked case of eczema that is likely associated with it. What’s a girl to do?

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I had a fever of 102 yesterday so I had to stay home from school today. Daddy was in Vancouver, WA helping Grammy Sam find a new place to live, but raced home so that Mommy could do more of her training as she continues to transition roles.

It was so great to start the day with Daddy. I missed him while he was away - Probably just as much as he missed us. After morning coffee at Starbucks, he and I had a rendez-vous with Dr. Spector to see what to do with me and my current state of health - Albuterol for wheezing, Tylenol for fever, Robitusson for the cough, and lots of love from the parentals.

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Last Thursday during a routine check up with Dr. Spector, he noticed a little bit of fluid in my right ear and warned that we may be headed toward an ear infection. My ear has definitely been bothering me since returning home from our trip to the Bay Area, so Daddy took me in yesterday for the doctor to have a look.

We were seen by Dr. Nancy Shuette since Dr. Spector is presenting at a medical symposium in Puerto Vallarta (yeah right… It’s just an excuse to have authentic Mexican margaritas). She was very, very nice and prescribed about a weeks worth of Amoxicillin to make sure the fluid didn’t develop in to a full-blown infection.

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