Lily needs hers because of her peanut allergy. She gets peanuts on accident and it's massive, migrating hives for 72+ hours. Which is why is has only occurred once, by accident, and we keep vigilant about watching what she eats.
Hattie on the other hand...turns out her body doesn't like bee stings so much. Which is really of no major surprise since I don't do well with them either.
Rewind to August 27, 2015.
Let's set up the back story: I had taken Ben to BMX and left Jason at home with all the girls. It was a lovely summer evening and Ben had biked well. I had gotten a nice break just sitting in the stands cheering him on.
Upon returning home, I hear Jason say: Hattie, go show mommy your lip.
Oh great. What happened? I'm bracing for a scraped lip or please don't let it be another chipped tooth. (Another story all on it's own, but a quick recap: I went to Vegas for a long weekend with a friend. Upon returning I find that Hattie has a chipped front tooth. Apparently, Ben was helping her brush her teeth and lifted her up to spit into the sink. She slipped out of his arms and hit her front tooth on the sink base and the rest is history.)
I scooped up my baby girl and was met with a very swollen top lip. She had gotten stung by a wasp while I was gone. I was alarmed to say the least. This lip was huge and I really wasn't very comfortable going into the night hours with a reaction like this. Jason assured me that it was actually looking better. It wasn't nearly as red as it had been at the beginning. (Somehow, this was doing very little to alleviate the stress that was building in my gut.) I went to bed that night with Hattie by my side. There was no way I was going to leave her in her own room with this level of a reaction going on. I barely slept that night, watching the rise and fall of her chest and listening to her breathing.
I woke up to this the next morning:
Her lip was enormous and I was freaking out.
Notice how insanely large her top lip is compared to her bottom lip?!?
I immediately got out the benedryl and administered her some. We waited and after and hour plus it hadn't reduced the swelling at all. Not. At. All.
I quickly dialed the pediatrician only to find out that she was booked solid for the day. I politely mentioned that this was sort of urgent and that I was worried about a potential anaphylactic type of reaction to a bee sting. They got me in right away.
When Dr. Spandl came into the room, she was taken aback at how large her lip had become. I told her I was pretty sure I wasn't dreaming, that it had actually become even more swollen since I had called in.
Dr. Spandl looked everything over, including listening really well to Hattie's breathing. Hattie's lip was starting to split on the inside from all the pressure and swelling. Since it had only been about 18 hours since the actual sting and the swelling usually peaks around 48 hours, it was obvious that intervention was needed and that Hattie's lip couldn't handle any more swelling.
The Pediatric Allergist was called and instructions given that Hattie needed steroids, and she needed them quickly. We got a prescription called in and were told to head directly across the street to get them. Dr. Spandl gave me strict instructions not to even leave the pharmacy parking lot without giving her the steroids first. We ended up having to give her 3 days of steroids along with benedryl round the clock for that same time period.
We now have an epi-pen for Hattie and bees have taken on a new meaning in our family. This fall has been more stressful with the crazy amount of hornets and wasps flying around. The pediatric allergist concluded that since this was Hattie's first sting of her life and that she reacted so, so poorly that the next one could very easily end up putting us in an anaphylactic situation.
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