the evil peanut butter episode

"some babies can eat peanut butter at 10 months and be fine, other babies can eat peanut butter at 18 months and develop an allergy." so said our pediatrician, Dr. Milnes.

after showing up at the emergency room with maya and her puffy eyes, hands and lips the nurse says "oh peanuts, you aren't suppossed to give those to kids until after they are two years old." Um, excuse me...next time I have a parenting question I will have to call you.

so, apparently maya may have a peanut allergy. and that sucks.

the whole ordeal did not do anything for my panic mom disorder. i told my mom that i didn't want to try peanut butter until i was ready to take her to the emergency room if needed. so yesterday on my lunch hour, it seemed as good a time as any. my mom gave her a piece of bread with a light spread of peanut butter. maya promptly held the bread up to her face and tried to lick off the peanut butter. (why eat the bread if you already know what it tastes like...it's much more efficient to lick the new thing). so after a couple minutes of smearing it all over her face and not getting much in her mouth (most of the time what goes in comes right back out to be inspected...she likes to view her food in all stages of digestion) i take a look at her to wipe her off and she has huge welts all around her lips. then they are on her hands. and then she starts rubbing them into her eyes. and then i am internally freaking out and externally saying things like "mom, do you think her mouth looks different?" "what is on her hands?"

you have to remember that i have been diagnosed with panic mom syndrome (or PMS)...where everything seems to be a potential tradgedy...and I mean everything. she can poke her eye out with the pig tail from the animal farm she got for Christmas, or she can choke on the socks she likes to carry around, or she may stop breathing in the middle of the night for no reason, or she may get a concussion by hitting herself in the head with her toy phone. it's neverending and it makes it really hard to tell when something is serious or silly. most of my worries are silly. so i tend to think all of them are. because i am an all or nothing thinker....but that is a whole other post for a whole other day.

so anyway, my panic mom syndrome kicks in and i immediately want to call 911, but i try to be rational (which does not blend with PMS) and i call her pediatrician first. and i am put on hold for about 13 and one half hours because "all the lines are busy." which is, again, not helpful for PMS. then finally someone puts me through to our nurse whose voice mail comes on. COME ON!! so I calmly press "0" because that is more rational than screaming into the phone and throwing it through a window. but then i start thinking things like "why didn't i do this on my cell phone so i could be halfway to the ER by now. what possessed me to use a land line phone when i never use land lines? how am i going to hold this phone to my ear while on hold and corral maya and get her coat and hat on because it is about -13 degrees outside?" so i finally get a nurse on the phone who tells me to take maya to the ER. well, duh! i wasted all my time being rational.

i love going to the ER when you have a true emergency. i've been there before when i thought i broke my toe. i waited four hours and the doctor told me that there was nothing he could do. it was a fantabulous experience. so this time, i say "PEANUT. REACTION" and I sure do get one. i get miss know-it-all-nurse to check maya's "vitals" and another lady to check us in. except everyone seems to be moving in slow motion. I tried saying it a few more times..."PEANUT. REACTION." but they don't move any faster. apparently they think it's important to talk to maya and ask her what happened and get all of her "vitals" before they will let us in the er and give us something that will make the pink, puffy, rashy-thing stop.

what are "vitals" anyways? i could have told them what her vitals were..."temp fine, breathing fine, pulse fine. the only thing NOT fine is that she ate peanut butter for the first time and now she is pink and puffy and itchy and uncomfortable....so do something to help her NOW." not to mention, everytime they come at maya with a stethescope or a pulse reader thingy she screams and squirms out of my grip. the real clincher was the butt thermometer. i felt violated right along with her. by the time we finally saw the doctor she was giving everyone the pink, puffy, evil eye.

they didn't have a room for us so they sat us on a bed in the hallway. we looked right into a room where an old lady was laying. the er is full of old people. old people and a pink puffy naked maya. they did let us keep her in a diaper and her pink booties. needless to say, we were popular with nurses and old ladies alike.

we were finally sent home after some benadryl and monitoring and then as soon as we got home, she breaks out into a huge rash all over her body...so back in the car and back to the ER. I wasn't even messing around with a phone or rational-ness anymore.

this time we waited in the lobby and they treated her out there because she decided that she would rather run around the hospital half naked than sit in a boring room. she got a steriod, and luckily it was a liquid, so we got to try and squirt it into her mouth while she writhed out of the grip of three people. it was lots of fun.

then the doctor tells us that she needs to sleep in the same room with us for the night and that we can't let her out of our sight. we need to make sure she keeps breathing. great. as if i am not already on the verge of tears and in panic mom mode, i now will lay awake all night wondering if my daughter is breathing.

these instructions proved very difficult because apparently Dr. ER hasn't lived with maya. it is really hard to tell if she is struggling to breathe in between moving the furniture, running laps around the kitchen, and making loud announcements at anyone who will listen.

i woke her up several times last night trying to check her breathing. and this morning she's fine, no more pink puffy rashy maya.

i think i will recover eventually, hopefully. maybe. but probably not.