Good afternooon.
We're just back from being to A & E in the children's hospital here in Dublin.
I got the scare of my life just after 12 o´clock.
I've been introducing little man to some solids the last few weeks and this morning we were out of the food that he'd previously tried, carrot & potato or pear purée, so I decided to try one of these breakfast things that I've got with a baby magazine earlier.
It was Heinz Farley's Breakfast Fruit & Yogurt.
The little man loved it and at the lot. I was thinking of buying him more and wrote it down on my shopping list.
Leon still seemed hungry so he also had 80 ml of formula on top of that and was pretty sleepy afterwards.
Mr T got home from work 30 min or so after I'd finished feeding Leon and that's when I noticed that he had a little white bump on his neck, just under his chin.
He was laying on the sofa for his usual nap but started to become a bit fussy and kept scratching his ear and neck.
I told Mr. T and he came and had a look. After a short while more little white bumps started to appear and his face became a bit reddish.
I called the children's hospital for advice and they told us to come in so they could check him.
But this time I was almost panicking as Leons ear was really swollen, as was his lips and more bumps started to appear on his body and face.
He did cry but to too much and we hurried up and got in the car as quick as we could with the little one only half dressed.
His ears was almost twice the size at one stage and really, really red. He looked so horrible and we were so scared.
Being Friday afternoon as normal sucks traffic wise but apparently this is also a bank holiday weekend which means it's even worse.
Dunno how long it took us before we got remotely close to town but what kept me cool was that I saw that the swelling was slowly subsiding or at least it wasn't getting worse. Little man was not crying at all but was very tired and even fell asleep for a while.
Anyway, we arrived eventually and got Leon checked out by a doctor.
Our little man was by now pretty okay, if I can use the word okay when your baby resembles a radish.
He had no raised temp and his airways was open and he seemed in a pretty good mood.
He was slowly getting back to his usual happy self but it was such a relief to be in the hospital.
The doctors gave him some medicine to make the swelling go down, some sort of steroids, and wanted us to stay for observation for 3 hours just in case things would take a nasty turn.
Leon was however really alert and laid on the bed giggling after a while so the doc said that we could go home.
He'd be just fine.
After getting home the redness disappeared and his skin actually got better than it was before so the drugs that was given was probably really good and took care of more than the reaction itself.
Now, several hours later, when I'm completing this post, you cannot see that something has happened to him except for a little excema patch on his arm that flared up due to the reaction.
His skin is smooth again and he's been such a happy boy tonight.
He's sound asleep but something tells me that I'll be on my guard tonight even though he's fine.
And never ever again will I feed him anything that might kick such a reaction off before knowing that we can get him to the hospital quickly. I'll even make sure that Mr. T is home before he'll get his carrots and potato tomorrow.
Another thing is that I cant help but to think that I'm such a crap mum.
Poor little love got all red and swollen because I fed him something bad. I'm just so thankful that it didn't got worse.
Leon just after we got home, still puffy and red
Leon with my dear friend Steph later this evening when he was back to his usual face size..I'm soon off to bed but I just needed to post this first...
As I said to Mr T earlier, we'll have a life time of scares to "look forward too".
Phew....
Good night from a mummy whos heart was racing earlier.
