Betrayed by my body

[astra_nomer]

Woke up around 2am because the right half of my tongue and part of my lips had swollen up. I hadn't eaten anything particularly unusual the day before, except perhaps for some gourmet chocolate truffles. Conferred with webmd.com and DH, and decided to drive myself to the emergency room so that we didn't have to disturb the kids, and now I know where the emergency room is for the next time we take our eyes off DS2 for too long.

The receptionist took her time checking me in, meanwhile it was getting harder and harder to talk clearly, and finally a nurse came over and said, "why do you still have this lady? Look at her face! Come with me." So I guess it was bad enough that I looked pretty awful, but I hadn't bothered to look in the mirror before taking off.

Got electrodes stuck all over my chest and a heparin lock in my arm, and was told I'd be pumped full of steroids, benadryl, and epinephrine. But, as with most of my experiences with hospitals, they took their time about getting things together, and so it wasn't until about 4am that the nurse showed up with the meds. By that time I was starting to cough a lot, so she picked up the pace. The swelling went down almost immediately, and my cough cleared up. However, they kept me until 10am for observation, but I was able to sleep for most of that time (mmm, benadryl....zzz...) so it was okay.

My mouth and tongue are still a bit swollen, but that should go away over the next few days. I filled the prescriptions they gave me, and I am the proud owner of a shiny new epipen. *shudders*

Comments

[gnibbles.livejournal.com]

eep, what did you have? o_O

[astra-nomer.livejournal.com]

Best guess is some kind of allergic reaction, probably to something I ate. Allergies have a way of sneaking up on you, even when you're thirty, I guess. I'll find out when I see the allergist later this week, I guess...

[gnibbles.livejournal.com]

hmm... my dad is deathly allergic to conch shells... ;9

[marcusmarcusrc.livejournal.com]

I am glad that the meds worked... that sounds really scary! Will they do some form of allergy test to figure out what it was that set you off?

[astra-nomer.livejournal.com]

I'm seeing an allergist on Thursday. I'm just glad it was so easy to set up.

[nuclearpolymer.livejournal.com]

Bummer. A bunch of my relatives have developed drastic seafood allergies after the age of 30, so now I feel the need to warn all my dinner partners that there is a small chance they will need to take me to the emergency room one of these days.

[astra-nomer.livejournal.com]

I was repeatedly asked, "did you eat shrimp?" I hadn't. Though on reflection, there may have been shrimp stuff in the kimchi... but not much, if any. I would be totally bummed out if it turns out I'm allergic to it!

[lokiect.livejournal.com]

oh, wow. that sucks! are you going to go in for surface testing or something.
take care of yourself!

[dcltdw]

and decided to drive myself to the emergency room

they took their time about getting things together, and so it wasn't until about 4am

I think that's why. Obviously, I don't actually know.

Certainly, there's a very persistent rumor up here in Boston that if you drive yourself to the ER, you automatically hit the bottom rung of the priority list. Because if it wasn't that bad, you wouldn't have driven yourself in.

Naturally, this fails spectacularly -- there are cases of men driving themselves to the hospital complaining of chest pain (with a history of cardiac disease in their family, no less)... and the "frequent fliers" who know that they need to call an ambulance to get the attention they want.

Still, if your tongue is swelling up enough that it's getting hard to talk, I'm surprised that they didn't immediately nail you with epi and benadryl. (The reason I'm surprised is that the only time I've ever seen an experienced medic hustle is with an anaphylaxic patient.) But then, my medical knowledge fits quite snugly into a very, very tiny box, so there may be a very good reason I'm surprised -- like, say, total ignorance. :)

Glad to hear you're okay. :)

[astra-nomer.livejournal.com]

Certainly, there's a very persistent rumor up here in Boston that if you drive yourself to the ER, you automatically hit the bottom rung of the priority list. Because if it wasn't that bad, you wouldn't have driven yourself in.

Well I certainly I got a lot of, "you drove yourself in? do you live alone?" But then got understanding nods when I told them that the hubby was home with the little ones.

I'm pretty sure that I got an IV as opposed to oral meds because they thought I needed immediate action. And I think the check-in time on my bracelet was someting like 2:49am, so I did get the meds within about an hour.

[capsicumanuum.livejournal.com]

Oh wow. I'm glad you're okay and that the ER finally got their act together and gave you the right meds.

[ilai]

Eep, that is scary! Good to know you're doing OK now--I hope they figure out exactly what's causing it.

[76trombones.livejournal.com]

Note to self: never have an allergic reaction near that hospital. (Well, ok, that's a rather incomplete note, but then, how could I follow it anyway?)

Gourmet chocolate truffles could have nuts (or traces thereof) that you don't usually eat. You've probably already thought of that one.

[astra-nomer.livejournal.com]

well, I'm not saying they were incompetent. I felt very well taken care of, actually. They went to the trouble of putting me on oxygen as soon as they had me in a bed. And I'm sure that if I had been wheezing or coughing when I showed up, they would have acted a lot more quickly.

Yeah, my suspicions are mostly on the chocolates or the pine nuts I put in our dinner.

[arcanology.livejournal.com]

Hopefully it was the pine nuts, because chocolate... unthinkable?

And anyway, what's the point of pine nuts? You're better off without them. They don't even come from pine trees.

[astra-nomer.livejournal.com]

I have experimentally determined that I'm not allergic to ordinary chocolate. Yay!

I haven't yet had the nerve to try another fancy gourmet chocolate. I'll stick to the straight dark stuff for now.

[narya.livejournal.com]

Eek! Glad you're getting such a prompt allergist appointment, at least!

[shumashi.livejournal.com]

Yikes!
*hugs!*