No More Walnuts for Ella

Well, I guess our little Ella has a walnut allergy!! We don't know for sure yet, but after yesterday, we are not taking any chances with ANY nuts until her appt. with an allergist in two weeks. I am SOOOOOO thankful for how I was able to see God's hand in protecting our little one Tues. night; especially when I kept ignoring what Ella was telling me.

After Ella's soccer practice Tuesday night, we walked over to the high school to watch the girls varsity soccer game. Greta's team was actually getting the opportunity to escort the team onto the field and watch the game on the sidelines. So...after practice, I handed the three little ones some of the infamous mini chocolate chip cookies with walnuts from a local general store that makes them fresh every Tuesday. They are delish!! We all ate them and raced to the game.

Soon after we got there, Ella said that the cookie was sticking in her throat and she was coughing a little. I told her to get some water and then she went off playing more soccer. She came back a couple of times and said it was still bothering her and she was being what I thought was obnoxious by coughing and spitting and I told her to stop it!! (Oops!! )I thought she was overreacting and I actually had the discussion with my friend that she was tired and being a bit dramatic. (Oops again!! God forgive me!) Finally I looked at her closer and her lips were swollen like Mick Jaggers or like she just put on some 'plump me up' lip gloss. Then it hit me-she was having an allergic reaction! Ahhh!! How could I have been so dumb, self absorbed, unresponsive, etc. etc.....this is something that I know about! My dad is deathly allergic to tree nuts, which is basically everything except peanuts. We went as quickly to the car as we could and left Daron and the big kids there- I figured they could fend for themselves(nice, huh?, but Daron is a personable guy, and as luck had it, he got a ride from our friend, who is also the kids P.E. teacher). As we got to the car, I realized her ears were swelling up too and her eyes and face were getting red and blotchy.
***I realize this is long, I just want to get it all out-it helps me process and reminds me how God really had his hand in everything! As I heard from a quote today, "coincidences are miracles in which God prefers to remain anonymous"
We hightailed it home, got some benadryl and called our doctor who then told us to call 911. Really??? I asked. Yes. -Oh boy, that was hard for me to do since I had never done it before. Isn't that crazy that I second guessed it? I guess I had heard so many stories of people that call for the dumbest things and I didn't want to do that. Mistake #2-Don't worry about people pleasing when your daughter is having a hard time breathing!!!

The second the firefighters and EMT's arrived, I was put to rest as we knew two of the guys that were on the call. One was Ella's teacher's husband from last year that we know a bit from school and around town, and the other is a good friend that we go to church with and his daughter and Greta are close. The other guys were also fantastic, but it felt so nice knowing that our friends were taking care of Ella. After they checked her out, they decided that we should head down to the hospital, so Ella and I had our first trip in an ambulance, which thankfully was pretty uneventful. There, they gave Ella an IV for some steroids, as well as oxygen and wanted to watch her for a few hours to make sure that she didn't have another episode. Luckily, her skin got better and her face wasn't swollen anymore after this, but her tonsils remained HUGE. They then actually released Ella and sent us on our way to pick up our prescriptions, but while we were there, the doc called us and said he would feel much better having her monitored through the night in the hospital-so we went back. I was actually relieved b/c there she would have a heart monitor and would be watched in case it was hard to breath through the night (although it was actually morning since we got to bed at 2:30 am) with her mammoth tonsils.

Other small 'coincidences' were that when we were in her ER room, I looked out into the hall and our friend was the social worker on call (another friendly face). Then, when we went to check Ella into her hospital room, the nurse we were assigned was a mom I know from our Elementary school! Wow! Seeing these people really eased all of our minds and helped to keep us all calm. One last thing was that when we were driving down in the ambulance, I guess a couple of our friends saw me so they went over to our house to check on us. Daron was still there, passed the info. on and they spread the word to some of our friends to pray for Ella. It helped knowing that people were praying for Ella.

Ella ended up doing great through the night and we were released late morning. They put her on some steroids for a couple days and we are now proud owners of epipens. Ella's favorite part of the experience was that she got to pick out any food she wanted in the morning at the hospital. Oh, and she took home her hospital gown. I was going to order a cappuccino off the menu, but realized that they probably wouldn't believe it was for her, so we stuck to chocolate milk.

Two days later now, Ella is doing fine. She is bummed about not eating peanut butter for two weeks, as that is her favorite, but we are staying away from all nuts as a precaution until she sees the allergist. We are so BLESSED that she is doing great and that things turned out how they did. Sitting there watching her in the hospital bed was not fun, but it always puts things into perspective.