My poor baby had a BAD ALLERGY ATTACK on
her first birthday!!!
*sigh*. I am still traumatised. :(
On Sunday, we spent almost 5 hours at Houz
Depot, looking for things for our new house.
We did stop for a short tea break at OldTown kopitiam though.
After the shopping trip, baby Erin fell
asleep in the car. She was still
sleeping when we reached home so I transferred her to the spring cot where she
continued sleeping.
She woke up crying around 6+pm and kept
scratching her head. I just thought she
didn’t get enough sleep. Made her a
bottle of milk then we got ready to go out again for dinner.
In the car, she kept on crying and
fussing. She refused her milk, refused
my attempts to breastfeed her (unusual!) , refused her baby crackers and even
started throwing her body forwards and backwards while just crying away. My
initial thought was that she was too
tired/hungry/sleepy to drink her milk and then probably made herself too
distressed with all the crying. But
after a while, I started to get worried when she just won’t stop crying. We
even stopped by the roadside for a while to let her calm down (which she did)
but then she started crying again when she got into the car.
We quickly changed our original destination
and chose to just stop by at the nearest coffee shop for dinner. Hubby ordered food while I carried her
around. (she stopped crying when we arrived).
I brought her to a nearby fruit shop and
got the shock of my life when I saw under the fluorescent light that her entire
face was red and blotchy! Her body had red spots too. I went back to the shop and showed hubby and
we rushed out with the uneaten food and drinks on the table. (and with Elyssa
asking why she can’t eat her yong tau foo!)
We were in a panicky mode by then. The red
marks seemed to be getting more and more. Frantically drove past four closed
clinics (it was a Sunday night) and were contemplating going to the emergency
ward of the nearest hospital. In the
end, we drove to a 24 hour clinic near our house. During the drive, I managed to breastfeed her
and she nearly feel asleep. “Nearly” cos I prodded her once in a while as I
was a
paranoid that she may lose consciousness! When we reached the clinic, there were many
people waiting but I requested to see
the doctor immediately. The nurse
allowed us to go straight to the treatment room.
Doctor confirmed it was an allergy attack.
Told us if there was a second attack within 24 hours, we shouldn’t even go to
the clinic but to rush her to the nearest hospital. Yikes! He said her airways were clear and decided
against an injection as the dosage would be too high for Erin. Gave her oral medication instead. As for the cause of the cause of the allergy
attack, he said it could be due to pretty much anything. In terms of food, the only new thing she ate
that day was EGG! During our tea time at OldTown kopitiam, Erin sat next to
hubby and he used his spoon (he was eating half boiled eggs) to feed her
porridge. So, EGG is currently the main
suspect!! We told the doctor that she had egg but it was
approximately 4 hours before the allergy attack. He said up to 12 hours still possible. :(
Anyway, we went to my parents place after
the doctor visit. They were shocked seeing poor Erin’s condition! She has such fair skin so all the red blotches
were clearly visible. But slowly, we
could see the medicine taking effect – she was back to her playful self and the
red blotches slowly subsided.
So, that was what happened on Sunday night.
Luckily no secondary attack within the next 24 hours.
I am pretty devastated. I’ve seen how
allergy affects kids and I know if it’s a serious allergy, it can be a long, long battle to fight. :(
I am still hoping that hers is a mild
case. Maybe she’s only allergic to half
cooked eggs and not fully cooked eggs.
Maybe it was something she touched in Home Depot. Maybe that was a
one-off incident that will never happen again. Maybe….. Maybe……. *sigh*, my poor Erin.
