The One Where the Daycare Almost Killed My Child.

Sooooooo

They gave my son, who is allergic to wheat, a pancake at daycare today.

Let’s let that marinate for a moment……

I get the call, around 930 that Pookah is not feeling well. He says his stomach is hurting. The school “nurse” also takes the time to point out that he is breathing hard and just doesn’t look right.

Confused, the first thing I ask is: what did he eat?

She asks the 3 year old, who replies: chicken nuggets…..which was lunch the day before.

I tell her to feel his belly. Is it hard? Yes…..take him to the bathroom and call me back.

15 minutes later……..

So, no he didn’t have to go to the bathoom. But now he is red in the face and he isn’t breathing too well.

By this time, CDub is already on his way down to the school from HIS job. Because I called him and told him to go lay eyes on my child.

I hang up, confident that he will get to the bottom of this….until the phone rings again:

“Ms Wiltz, he ate a pancake.”

“Wait..WHAT? He’s allergic to wheat!?!!!!”

“OH SHIT! I mean, what should I do?”

( side note, YOU A NURSE! WHY THE HELL ARE YOU ASKING ME WHAT TO DO?)

“Give him the epi pen NOW. I’m on the way”

“But I have to call 911 if I do! I’ll call you back.”

By this time, it had been at least an hour since he had the pancake.

I’m shaking I’m crying, I could barely get my purse out of the my desk. Luckily, my friend saw me and promised to tell my manager where I was going.

I arrived at the daycare just as the ambulance was leaving. Since CDub hadn’t called me and his car was still there, I assumed they didn’t take him to the hospital.

They said he was much better, but CDub noted that in the 5 minutes he had been there, he had already noted that the hives were coming back. And my baby was swollen, red, and just….

Well, off to the ER we went because even after the epi pen is given, you still have to watch a person because after the epi has worn off, the reaction could return. And as we drive, I watched in horror as my child vomited all over the place in the backseat.

And I’m a nurse who doesn’t do vomit. ( go figure)

I managed to drive, keep him from choaking on it, and keep myself from vomiting all at the same damn time.

But oh, it gets better….

We get there, start taking off his clothes, and found this……

On his leg.

WHAT THE HELL?

And Pookah wasn’t saying anything. But he wouldn’t let anyone touch it either. Soooo, they managed to put numbing cream on it and waited.

And then tried to clean out the wound. It took THREE of us to hold him down.

And then…

“He needs stitches”

He cried/screamed and I held his hands and sang to him while they had to add more lidocaine to the cut to numb it up before they could stitch it up.

He got a popsicle at the end of it and all was right in his world.

He had no clothes to come home in and no car seat to ride in since it was still full of vomit, so…….

( He did have a seat belt on all the way home and I drove really slow)

I got him home, gave him some motrin and he passed out.

 

I make it a point, every morning, to get up early and fix Pookah breakfast. EVERY MORNING. He NEVER eats breakfast in school. In fact, it is a small joke among his teachers that he eats oatmeal EVERY morning and refuses even an offer of fruit because he is full. He always TELLS them that “My Mommy fixed me oatmeal.”

The half story that I got was that he was in another teacher’s room and he got the pancakes there. Why didn’t she know my child was allergic to wheat? It’s EVERYWHERE.

2nd,if like they say, everyone knows, then how did he get the damn pancake? Because supposedly  EVERYONE KNOWS!

Except the nurse who holds the epi pen…but I digress….

CDub said that when he got there, the DIRECTOR was saying, well they weren’t wheat pancakes.  So clearly, there are some people who just don’t know that wheat is in damn near everything: cookies, cakes, cupcakes, pasta, breads, sauces, meatloafs, some meatballs, etc…….

Do I have to do a damn in-service?????

I’m going to have to make them realize that this is like a peanut allergy: he could die from it.

This is why I pack his damn lunch AND snacks every day. SO THAT THIS DOESN’T HAPPEN!

Oh we are all going to have a looooong talk tomorrow morning.

And there is no way I can be nice about it.

Just wait until tomorrow morning.

Just wait.