Cadence's Reaction :(

Week before last Cadence was sitting in the livingroom floor playing while I gave Tatum her bottle. I noticed that she was rubbing her eyes, and then she started scratching her face... Well, she got up and came to sit with me and was still rubbing and scratching and I noticed a few little bumps on her face. I looked down her shirt and it looked like she was getting a little heat on her chest and stomach, so I went ahead and called the doctor's office thinking she may be having a little bit of an allergic reaction. While I was leaving the message Cadence started scratching more and saying "Momma it itches, Momma it hurts" so I immediatly put her in the bathtub with some Aveeno Oatmeal Soap and slightly warm water and started rubbing her down with it. By the time that the nurse called me back, which was only 5 mins later, Cadence had full blown hives all over her face, neck, torso, diaper area, and legs. Then her face and ears started swelling! The nurse told me to get her some Benedryl as quickly as I could and if she started having difficulty breathing to take her straight to the ER. Well let me tell you, I was on the phone hysterical trying to get someone to bring me some Benedryl... The first people I could think of were Sommer and Eric (Dave was on the Lebanon side of Watertown and his parents were in Lebanon). As soon as Eric answered the phone I said "I NEED HELP!" He said, "OK, what do you need and we're getting in the car right now" . Sommer ended up getting a speeding ticket on the way to my house, and when they got there I was already so frazzled I thought I was going to have a breakdown! We got the Benedryl down Cadence and Sommer and Eric stayed with me for about an hour to make sure that it would work. After about 20mins the swelling started going down and I finally relaxed just a little. I have NEVER EVER EVER been so scared in all my life! I have had a lot of scary things happen to me (including running out of a burning house in the middle of the night) but I was to the point of having a panic attack over this. Her reaction was so immediate - it was like one minute she was rubbing her eyes and the next she looked like Will Smith in that movie Hitch when he has the allergic reaction to shellfish! I didn't really know what caused the reaction because she hadn't had much that day that she had not already had before, but she did have some orange-tangerine juice... I am very allergic to oranges, so I thought that may be it (and it still may be). But she had also been playing outside that day, and had been chasing bees, so I think that is probably more likely.... The first little place on her face that I had noticed was still there several days later, so I think that was probably a sting site. I called a few days later to see about getting her a child-sized epi-pin and the doctor called me back and referred me to an allergist there in Murfreesboro. She wants us to pinpoint what the reaction was to so that we will know how best to treat it. In the meantime, we have to keep Benedryl with us at all times in case she has another reaction. I literally got on my knees the night of the reaction and cried again and thanked God for letting her be OK... and I thanked him for friends like Sommer and Eric, who dropped everything to rush to help me. I'm blessed to be their friend, and my girls are blessed to have them as God Parents. I think the scariest thing about being a parent is when something goes wrong, or you have an emergency, with your kids... it stops your heart.

Thankfully Cadence is doing well now, we had several inches of her hair cut last week and it is cute as it can be. She is very verbal now about everything... she told me and Dave last night not to look at her because she was picking her nose! Then when I told her to quit that because it was nasty she said "I have a booger!" Like duh, why else would she be picking her nose?!?! She is so full of life all the time, she truly lights up every single day.

There are new pics of both of my girls on the Loving Touch website - www.lovingtouchportrait.com . Go to the proofing section, under Buttercup Session and they are on pgs 5 and 6... Also, there are some of their pics in the Baby and Children sections from Tatum's 6mo session. Hope you all have a blessed day!

Stay tuned for my new blog layout being made by my Sister-In-Law, Jenna !