Mother's Day, Spiders, Emergency Room...Oh My!!!

Okay, before anybody gets too worried, everybody is fine. Dylan is doing great, it was yours truly who ended up in the emergency room on Mother's Day (not exactly how I anticipated spending my first mother's day! Saturday afternoon, I put on a pair of jeans. I felt a prick but thought that it was a tag or something. I took the jeans off to get the tag out and found a spider. Needless to say I wasn't thrilled about that (see, I never should've stopped wearing sweatpants!) It didn't really hurt or anything, so I wasn't very concerned.

Dylan, Ella, Andrea, my mom and I went to Deanna Rose which is a free petting zoo that afternoon. Ella loved feeding the goats! Dylan slept through most of the trip, but enjoyed being outside.

That night, when I woke up for the 4 a.m. feeding I noticed my face felt flush. My mom agreed, but we weren't very concerned. By Sunday morning, it was more flush and had spread to my chest a bit. My face was also getting a little swollen which is about as fun as it sounds. I took a couple of doses of Benadryl knowing that I was likely having an allergic reaction to the spider. I felt pretty crappy most of the day and by 4 that afternoon the redness had spread throughout my entire body. My mom was just about to head back to DSM, but instead we decided, after consulting with my grandpa and my personal nursing staff (thanks Beth and Kris), to head to the hospital.

The emergency room trip was pretty efficient overall. They agreed that I was having an allergic reaction to the spider bite. They gave me a shot of a steroid and a stronger antihistamine through an IV. The IV was actually the worst part. The nurse tried to start it on the top of my hand. She didn't get it initially, so was wriggling the needle around which obviously doesn't feel very good! She went through the vein, so my hand started puffing up. She wanted to get a vial of blood before sticking me again, so she could use a smaller needle. Finally, I told her that if she didn't take the IV out, I was going to. Luckily, she got the next one fairly easily. I felt amazingly better after I left the hospital.

My mom stayed the night and we bottle fed Dylan with milk that I had pumped before he was eating until we could talk to the lactation consultant and see if it was okay to feed him with the drugs they sent me home on (luckily it is!). So, I'm on Benadryl 4 times a day, a steroid (Erin, I'm in the prednisone club now!) and pepcid which apparently helps with the antihistamine. I'm definitely improving; although still have some redness in my face. Unfortunately, the Benadryl makes me even more tired/lethargic than normal, so I've been struggling a bit. I think Dylan can sense that I'm not quite normal around him.

I went to the doctor today for a follow up appointment. The nurse practioner agrees that I'm on the right track and thinks that within a few more days I'll be back to normal. I still have to be on the look out for any signs of infection and if the redness comes back all over again they want to hear from me. However, she thought both of these things were unlikely because it's been a few days since the bite. Luckily, I threw the spider in the trash and we were able to get it back out to examine it. Based on the internet searches, we're all pretty sure it was a brown recluse. We're hoping it might be an isolated incident, but we are contacting exterminators to have them come check the house out.

A special thanks to all of the friends who have made meals and brought them over. They have all been delicious and it's so nice not to have to worry about what to cook a few nights a week! We're all very grateful!! Also, a big thanks for all of the mother's day wishes. They were very much appreciated, sorry I didn't respond, but as you can guess it was a little hectic!

Below are some pictures from this weekend. There aren't any pics of me from Mother's Day, because I wasn't feeling very photogenic with my bright red/puffy face.

We illegally took this picture of Ella on top of the buffalo. Of course, after we did it a million other kiddos tried to climb them until a worker at the petting zoo came and yelled at everybody. Only 15 months old and Ella is already a bad influence!!

Grandma and Ella in front of the combine

Ella and Andrea feeding the goats. The big goat figured out where Andrea's stash of food was!

First trip to the zoo! And of course Dylan is sporting some cute overalls for the occasion!!

It's hard to see, but earlier this week when Andrea and Ella came over for dinner, Ella got pooped on by a bird in our driveway. Andrea was not nearly as amused as we were!

Proud grandparents!

Debbie came to visit us and brought us a great meal!

We made sure to get a picture of Lars holding Dylan this visit!

Sleeping like a baby on mommy's chest!