First Trip to the ER...

Joey is fine now. But today he had his first trip to the ER. I will post more happy, healthy pictures tomorrow of the first part of his day, but this is how we ended the night. He found some fire ants in a field on base while playing with his friends. They really devoured him. He had a big reaction. They bit him all over his legs and stomach, in his diaper, and his back and neck, but then he also broke out everywhere else, including his face, because of the bites. This is right afterwards, as I'm getting some benedryl at the store (which didn't have any, so I had to go to a friend of a friend's house anyway).



He's crying because I won't let him go into the store with me. My friend Angela is parked next to us, so that I can run in and out. You can see around his mouth some of the rash.


He got these little bumps all over at first. You can see his eye swelling up.


Thanks Angela for the lollipop! It helped! Poor fella. Look at that face!!!

Breaks my heart. My little baby. I got a few of those bites while I was undressing Joey, and they were sooo painful. I can't imagine the pain he felt with bites all over his body!

This is when we first got to the ER. They put a bandage on Green Daddy, too, to make Joey feel better. But it really just ticked him off. He made me take it off as soon as the nurses left the room.


They said he did awesome when getting the IV put in. He didn't cry, just watched. He did better than most all their kid patients, even 5 year olds! :-) And they loved his haircut there!



Little Joey in the big hospital bed. (He let me put Green Daddy's bandage on his ankle for a minute).



They monitored his pulse on his big toe. :-) You can imagine how long that stayed in place. Ha.

He wouldn't lay back against the bed. Just sat up.

Getting his first dose of medicine. He was such a brave boy! (You would have been so proud, and impressed, Earl!--We know you do NOT act this brave when it comes to needles!)



He asked the nurse, "Take this off?"


I found some fruit snacks in my purse, and he ate all of them.

Already looking much better! ^

His first dose of benedryl that I gave him before going to the ER kicked in and took away a lot of the swelling before they even gave him medicine. Then their meds took the rest of the swelling away.






The nurse also put the hospital bracelet on Green Daddy instead of Joey (He also made me remove that).


They didn't really make a big deal about him having such a severe reaction there. They just kept saying how bad fire ants are. He never had breathing problems, so they knew he'd be fine from the start, but didn't like that his face had swollen and broken out. They gave me some steriods and anti-histimines to give him for the next few days to keep the rash away.
We probably got to the ER by 6. He was asleep a little after 7pm in my arms. We didnt get to check out until around 8pm (a burn victim came in and they got distracted--go figure--he he. I'm teasing. I didn't mind.) I put him to bed when we got home at about 8:30pm. They want me to give him some more benedryl at midnight tonight. He is really all better. He looks 100% better than he did when he first broke out. That was scary.
So that was the last half of our exciting day. I took a million pictures of Joey and his friends from BEFORE the great ant raid, so I'll post them tomorrow, while Joey sleeps off the benedryl. Ha!