(no subject)

[the_rck]

Yesterday was frustrating. Scott had planned to take Cordelia at about three to meet cherydactyl, her family and a couple of other friends for a picnic followed by watching fireworks. Unfortunately, he started showing signs of food poisoning about noon. He kept hoping he'd be better real soon now, but it was six before he started to recover and probably way to late for heading out to join the group (the metroparks tend to fill early in the day and turn people away after they've reached capacity. Making a forty-five minute drive with a small child just to find out seemed unwise at best).

We still have no idea what set him off. He says it wasn't an allergic reaction, but everything that he ate, I also ate, and I didn't get sick. The symptoms weren't severe enough to be beef contamination, but they did remind me of how he used to respond to beef several years ago. I hope this doesn't mean a new allergy. Of course, he had taken an antihistamine already, and that eases the symptoms. Who knows?

He ended up calling his parents to see what they were doing. He and Cordelia drove up to sit in the grass next to a Target parking lot with his parents and his sister's family. From what I gather, everybody had fun. Cordelia apparently didn't find the fireworks anywhere near as interesting as the chance to play with her cousins and had to be distracted to keep her from running around after the show started.

Scott's sister had difficulty believing that Cordelia had never before seen fireworks. She kept trying to tell Cordelia that she'd just forgotten until Scott intervened to explain that, up until this year, we'd just skipped Fourth of July festivities. I guess the fact that I wasn't there hadn't quite added up in her mind to the realization that I don't enjoy such things.

I stayed home and checked a couple of points of canon for my remix fic. Then I did a little writing, just for fun stuff, watched a bit of The Patriotic Knights (still fun) and played a bit of Cradle of Rome. I also stuffed my backpack full of paperbacks for the trip to my grandmother's next weekend. If I'd had more time, I probably would have put some effort into starting a list of things that have to be done before the trip and of things that have to be packed next Sunday morning.

Making the list would have increased my anxiety levels last night even if having the list would help anxiety levels for the rest of the week. I desperately needed some time to decompress. I'd been getting increasingly cranky as last week wore on due to having so much of the normally shared chores dumped on my (and added to!) by Scott's illness. I wanted to get to the point where I could handle everyday stuff without snarling at Cordelia.

Comments

[presterjon.livejournal.com]

S and I should talk.
I get these immense 'beef' responses that will send me vomiting or to the emergency room. I thought I was the only one. Maybe there is something we can share that'll make treatment and avoidance easier.

[the_rck]

Scott's never gone to the ER for the allergy, but I think we're edging toward where he may. The difficulty, of course, being getting him there as I can't drive at all.

I think he'd love to share any information about it. The biggest thing is that he has to remember to read ingredients even when the presence of beef seems unlikely. We bought turkey hotdogs that turned out to contain something like 1% beef, and I know that there are snack foods that make him quite ill.

[evalerie.livejournal.com]

Hm. If you're thinking ER, then it might be worth having him see an allergist to see if he should have an epi-pen. That can save the life of an allergic person, especially if there's no easy way to get him to the ER quickly.

I don't know the details of Scott's allergy, and he might need to specifically be anaphylactic before an epi-pen can help. But an allergist could help sort that out.

[the_rck]

He has an epi-pen, but it's two or three years old. I need to remind him to ask for a new one. My impression is that the allergist considered his description of his allergy reaction to be borderline and, as the reaction has been getting worse over the course of the last fifteen years, thought it might get to full blown anaphylaxis in the not too distant future. Combining swelling body parts (not face or throat so far) with pain and running at both ends makes the whole thing thoroughly dreadful.