I had a Dr. Apt with Dr. Avula my allergist on Jan. 21st to discuss further testing of foods and other possible allergens.  It was also my day to get my regularly scheduled allergy shot.  But because I was also seeing the doctor a different nurse did my allergy shots.  There are three possibilities that could have happened during this particular set of allergy shots: 1) the dose was just too high for my system, 2) I was given the wrong dose from the correct set of vials or 3) the next set of vials were mixed up and the dose I was given was actually 10 fold higher than I should have been given.  We will never know.  When the shots were about to be administered I asked the nurse if this was going to be my highest dose so far.  I was wondering because I had been having increasingly more swelling around the injection sites.  As soon as I asked her the question, she responded with “oops” and she put one vial down and retrieved a different one.  It was strange, but I just thought I was ask about it later.

I got the injection and then the Dr came in and we started our discussion about options. when my first sneeze came.  Throughout the conversation, I became more congested and kept trying to sneeze.  Both of my arms began to itch very badly (which normally doesn’t start happen until about 2 hours later).  I started scratching all the way up and down my arm.  No one seemed to notice anything.  By the time I checked out I was sneezing. This was about 30 minutes after the injection when I checked out.

By the time I got to the car I knew something was wrong and I took a Zyrtec to help the allergy like symptoms.  And then we went to pick up Gideon from day care about a mile from the doctors office during which time my nose started to run and my eyes were starting to burn and then I started to cough.  Josiah instantly recognized that something was wrong when I started coughing because he suffers from asthma.  So I called the doctors office and headed directly back to the office but the doctor had already left and was not answering his phone.  I sat at the office for about 5 minutes waiting to hear from the doctor or to figure out what I should do.  Instead I googled anaphylaxis and immediately left the doctors office and headed to Urgent care.  I still had not heard back from my doctor and as it turns out he had not turned his phone back on and his staff were freaking out, even his wife because they knew that he needed to get a hold of me.

In the Urgent Care, I still had to fill out forms even though I told them I was in anaphylaxis, but once they called me back they moved fairly fast.  I itched everywhere, especially on the palms of my hands and the bottoms of my feet…I even bruised the bottoms of my feet from trying to scratch them with my big toe.  I could no longer breath through my nasal passage and my air way was beginning to close off.  My face had also began to swell.  Oh and I had both boys with me through all of this.  Luckily they both had electronics and sat quietly in the corner…although they were very interested when they started giving me shots.  Dan was still at work and was on his way.

I learned a very valuable lesson from this visit to urgent care…when you are facing a life threatening situation GO TO THE ER!!!  But as soon as they had me in the back they gave me a shot of epinephrine and gave me Benedryl and Prednisone.  And then they left the room.  I was not hooked up to monitors and they had not started an IV.  In fact I was on a chair like table that I couldn’t even lay down on.  Pretty sure they should have sent me to the ER (especially since they were in the same building).  But the first shot of epinephrine didn’t work, so they had to give me another one…and soon after I could begin to breath again and the itching on my hands and feet were starting to calm down.  On the flip side the effects of the two shots of epi were taking full hold.  I was shaking everywhere, even my butt cheeks were shaking.  So weird!  And then they just let me go home and said I could drive.  Again I am pretty sure they should have sent me to the ER and a good lesson about going to the ER instead of Urgent Care for any kind of allergic reaction.  Instead of driving right away, we dropped off the script for Prednisone and went to Taco Bell for some dinner.  Once we picked up the script I was feeling a bit less shaky and decided I would just drive as carefully as I possibly could.

So we headed home having no idea what this day would lead to in the very near future.