Advil? Really?

This week has been full of illness in our house, so it has taken me almost a week to finally post this. It all started Sunday. We had only been at church for about 45 minutes when I realized that Celo was being unusually cuddly with me because he was running a fever. Luckily we had come in two cars, so Marcelo took him and Eliana home, where Celo laid around feeling miserable. My dear, sweet husband let me take a nap after church, and when I woke up at 5:30, he had just put Celo to bed. He said, “He still had a fever, so I gave him some children’s Advil at 5, and by 5:30, he was so tired, he couldn’t keep his eyes open.” I thought Celo going to bed at 5:30 was a really bad idea, because it meant that he’d probably be wide awake at 5am and I was really not looking forward to that. So around 6, Marcelo woke him up and and gave him a drink. Celo’s eyes were a little puffy at this point, but we thought he had just been rubbing them too much because he always does that when he’s sick. He told us he was very sleepy, so we let him go back to bed. Thirty minutes later, I got a feeling I should check on him again. I walked in and he sat up half crying, saying, “I feel like I can’t breathe.” That’s when I noticed his eyelids were very, very swollen. I scooped him up and took him to Marcelo and said, “Something is very wrong.” Celo told us both again that he felt like he couldn’t breathe. His face looked puffy and his eyelids were really pink and swollen. Marcelo quickly got his shoes on and told me to call the hospital and tell them he was on his way. He grabbed Diego’s Epipen just in case and the two Marcelos rushed out the door to the ER.

I put Eliana to bed right away and brought Diego to my room to read some books before putting him to bed. But he couldn’t focus on the books because he was traumatized by what had just happened. He started crying while I was reading and said, “Mommy, I’m scared that Celo’s eyes are so puffy. I can’t stop thinking about Celo. I want him to be okay.” It took everything for me not to just start bawling. He was so so worried about his brother and was just sobbing. I told him we could say a prayer so that Celo would be okay and that made him feel a little better. He said, “Can we call Tata and Tato and ask them to say a prayer, too? So we did. Then he said, “I want to see a picture of Celo when he was happy.” We then spent about an hour looking through pictures and videos on the computer. He would laugh at an old picture of Celo and then he’d stop suddenly and look at me with teary eyes and say, “Even though I’m laughing right now I still really miss Celo.” For the 3 hours that Marcelo and Celo were gone, Diego said things like “I miss Celo. I know he misses me, too, because we’re always together at nighttime and right now we’re not.” or “I’m so sad my brother is not here.” or “I don’t want Celo to have puffy eyes, I want him to look happy.” Marcelo kept updating me with texts and Diego wanted to know right away, “Is that a message from Daddy? What did he say? Are they coming home yet?” Twice, he called me and we let the boys talk to each other on the phone. Diego said, “Celo are you sad? Because I’m sad.” He also said, “I miss you.” To which Celo responded, “I love you, too.” It was all very sweet and made me teary. By 9pm I was desperate to get Diego to sleep because he normally goes to bed by 7:30pm and I knew waking up the next morning was going to be rough for him if he didn’t go to sleep soon. But even with me next to him, he just couldn’t shut his worried little brain off. Finally at about 10pm, he fell asleep. (The next morning he said, “You were right. I should have gone to bed early. I’m so tired. You should have made me go to sleep early.” Yeah. My fault.)

The Marcelos came home at about 10:30 and filled me in on everything that had happened. Marcelo said that by the time they got to the hospital, Celo’s eyes were completely swollen shut. They determined that he had had an allergic reaction to Advil (that was his first time taking it). Because Celo was complaining about his breathing, and because of the swelling in his eyes and a little in his face, they gave him a shot of epinephrine, (lower dose than in Diego’s EpiPen), and a ton of benadryl. For the next few hours they just watched him to make sure the swelling was going down and to make sure the worst of the reaction was over. This is what Celo looked like when they got home:

The swelling was way down, but didn’t go away completely for about 24 hours. He was SO hyper when he got home. He was talking really fast and telling me all about his hospital visit. “And there was a bed and it had buttons and I could press them and there was a thing that looked like a robot and it was funny and there were boy doctors and girl doctors and the floor was white and there was a trash can that had needles in it and they gave me a shot but it didn’t bleed so I didn’t need a band-aid and I cried because it hurt a little bit and I played with Daddy and and and…” Marcelo later told me that after they gave Celo the meds, he got really loopy and then really talkative and just “talked my ear off for the whole time”. He said it was pretty hilarious to listen to all the random things Celo wanted to talk about during their long wait. I wish he had had a video camera with him.

It was definitely a scary experience, but he’s okay now. I had no idea anyone could be allergic to Advil. What the heck is the deal with my kids being allergic to random stuff?? Now we’re afraid to give him Motrin because both Motrin and Advil have ibuprofen. Celo has had Motrin before, but it’s been a really long time since we gave him any, so it’s possible that he’d be allergic to that one, too. It’s also possible that he’s not allergic to the ibuprofen in Advil but the NSAID or the flavoring or dye that was in it. Wish I knew for sure.

Celo stayed home for the next two days with a fever and slight cold. Wednesday was illness free. Then Thursday evening, Diego and Eliana both got fevers. Friday morning, they both had a fever of 102 and we ended up at the doctor’s office. Eliana was wheezing pretty bad and lost her voice. We’ve been nebulizing her and trying to get her to eat, but all she has had is milk, a couple of crackers, and a popsicle. She has no appetite and just wants to be held. Last night, Marcelo and I felt like we had a newborn again because we were up with her for most of the night. Her fever just wouldn’t go down. We gave her 5 baths, medicine, put a wet rag on her head, and tried to get her drink something, but when she wouldn’t, we gave her a popsicle. Good thing that girl likes sweets. It was a very long night with our miserable baby girl. It was so so sad. She’s usually soooo tough. She recently slipped and scratched and bruised her face on some rocks and she literally cried for 20 seconds and was over it. But last night, it was clear that she was in pain and felt awful. This morning she woke up in much better spirits and with less of a fever, so hopefully last night was the worst of it.

Oh, Health, how I take thee for granted sometimes.