[Try to contain your jealousy of my good looks]
It's when I see myself like this that I realize why Ben fell head over heels for me and how we magically ended up with 4 kids. Ha! Anyway, this picture doesn't show the hives -- but believe me, they were everywhere on my body. My face was one big hive. But you can see the swelling. My ears, nose, lips, cheeks, and double chin all expanded.
This story starts with Thad. After every delivery, I have always gotten an infection. With my first two kids I had uterine infections and with my last two I had UTI's. I was put on one antibiotic but when it did nothing I was prescribed a new medication. The day before I finished my antibiotic I noticed I was starting to get body aches. The next day I felt like I had the flu without a runny nose and cough. I also had a fever. Finally I did a little research and figured out hat I was having every single side effect of my antibiotic. So I figured that I would just wait it out until my prescription had left my body.
But then I developed a rash. They were tiny little dots. Little did I know that they were the beginning of hives. They covered my entire body. I took benedryl Thursday night and said I'd see the doctor in the morning if it got worse. When I got up for Thad's night feeding I looked in the mirror and my entire face was swollen. Being a stubborn idiot, I said, oh I'll let Ben sleep. He needs it. I'll probably be fine for a few more hours.
When I woke up we immediately went to urgent care. Since I was covered in hives head to toe they took me back and after checking me out told me I had anaphylaxis. My blood pressure was pretty low and the swelling had started spreading to the back of my mouth and at the top of my throat. They told me their goal at this point was to hopefully get this under control before forcing a tube down my throat. That's when I realized how serious this was.
They told me I'd have to get a shot of epinephrine to calm down the allergic reaction. Of course they tell me the since it's basically just a shot of adrenaline, my heart would start going crazy. I remarked something about how my heart problems just ended and now they were starting up again (I had some crazy heart palpitations in during my hospital recovery after having Thad... let's just say my medical team was pretty worried about me.) The nurse heard me and said, "You have heart problems?" So I told her about my syncopy (one of my heart conditions that makes it easy for me to faint at any time). She immediately left and got the doctor. The doctor looked me straight in the eye and said, "Epinephrine is going to be very hard on your heart. But we have to choose to treat your constantly-getting-worse allergic reaction or your heart at this point and so we'll have to still give you the shot." They immediately shot me with epinephrine and I started convulsing. Sure enough, I just about went unconscious but they made me lie down, put an ice pack on me and made me keep coughing hard to stay awake. It was a pretty hard fight to not pass out at the point. It would have been so easy, too easy to go under, but at that point, I didn't know how hard it would be to come back. Usually I wake up pretty quickly after passing out, but I didn't know what the case would be this time with epinepherine fighting my heart. So I tried my hardest not to go under. Pretty soon the paramedics showed up with the ambulance to take me to the hospital.
I'll be honest. When the nurses told me that being in an ambulance was mandatory, all I heard was the word "money." I wasn't thrilled about being forced into an ambulance. But once I was in it, I started having some much more serious problems. My IV wasn't put in right by the nurse at the urgent care and so any injection was excrutiating. I lost all feeling in my hands and they turned purple and blue. I had to keep fighting to not pass out. Thing after thing after thing happened. It was a good thing I was taken by ambulance. And, just for the record, it's sort of a small world that the paramedic who stayed in the back with me looked just like Ben's sister April, who was also a paramedic a while back. It made the experience a little more enjoyable.
On our way to the hospital the paramedic called ahead to book me a room and gave all my information to them. When she said "high risk anaphylaxis" I was like, "Um, what?!" But sure enough, my throat had started closing and I prayed that the meds they were injecting into my iv would work quickly.
The hospital was much more laid back. Basically they just loaded me up on meds and kept checking on me. I don't even know how many times they gave me benedryl. By the time I was there for a few hours and had to use the bathroom for the second time, I made Ben walk me down the hall because I felt like I was walking like a drunk person. Once while I was resting, Ben asked me if I wanted him to give me another blessing (he and his dad had given me one just a couple of nights before when I thought this allergic reaction was the beginning of the flu). I was so heavily drugged on benedryl I couldn't even open my eyes and I was still battling my heart to stay conscious. All I could do was nod. He gave me a blessing. I didn't hear any of it. That was my lowest physical point of this whole experience. I kept bouncing back and forth between consciousness. The only thing I heard was "amen" and then I was permenently aware of my surroundings again. I later asked Ben what was said, and both of us, as it turned out, had pretty spiritual experiences during this blessing. But again, this is a public blog, not exactly an appropriate place to go into detail about these things.
After a few hours in the hospital, I was pretty discouraged because even being on all these meds, my hives were still getting worse. But I didn't want to tell the doctor that because he had already talked about possibly putting me in an ambulance to go to yet another hospital. I didn't want to do that again. But my saving grace was that the only place my hives started receeding was in my mouth and throat. I wouldn't need a tube down my throat. He discharged me after I was only there for 3.5 hours.
It was a whirlwind of a day. But I'm happy to say that on our drive home, my hives started disappearing. And now I only have very few small hives left on my body. I am grateful for the priesthood and that I always have access to it. I'm thankful for medical professionals who know what they're doing. I'm thankful for hospitals that have HGTV. And I'm thankful for a husband who was so worried about me not getting to the doctor in time that he said, "You're seriously going to take time to brush your teeth when you're in this kind of condition?"
And finally, thank you family for your prayers. I think it was my final pull back to conciousness when Ben said the final "amen" of my priesthood blessing.
