"Could this day get any worse?" asks the C bear

Technically this photo was shot last night, but that's not where the hell begins for Claire. We took her to the Dr. yesterday after having a high-ish fever, cough and runny nose. She prescribed these nebulizer treatments you see here and sent us home with instruction to come back tomorrow (Friday) if her fever was still around. Well, at noon I got a call from Johanna that it had shot up to 103. BOO! So I made her an appt at the doctor at 4pm and rushed home to cuddle her until then.

Cut to 4:30 when the Dr. finally comes in to see us. Confirms ear infection. Good news b/c we know what is causing the fever. She says I can do oral antibiotics for 10 days or the shot. I choose the shot, both for quickness and b/c Claire isn't too keen on medicine taking (not like her sister who claims almost daily that she is "sick" and needs to take some Benedryl). Nurse comes in with 2 shots, looks at Claire's legs and says that the needles are "too big" so goes back to get different ones. That should have been clue #1 that I chose the wrong option. She comes back and gives her the shots and says she's setting the timer for 15 min. We have to hang around there until the timer goes off to check for any allergic reaction since she's a baby and this is her first round of antibiotics. She cries off and on the whole 15min, which I attribute to being tired. When the nurse comes back in we lay her down on the table and before our eyes she swells up like a puffer fish. At first she just had some small bumps on her hands, but literally in the 2 min we were examining her they just multiplied. She turned bright red and got really hot. Her face looked like Joan Rivers, or Octomom, puffy and red in places that shouldn't be red and puffy. The nurse rushes out and gets some Benedryl to counteract the allergic reaction. Which Claire immediately vomits back onto me. Along with the small amount of milk she had in her stomach from her last feeding at 1pm. Neat. She hasn't been eating much of anything while she's sick and what she had is now on my shoulder and shoe. Neat. At this point the Dr. comes in and is trying to be reassuring, but is kind of frantically relaying directions to the nurse. She has to get a steroid shot b/c she can't take anything orally with the vomiting. Dr. is reassuring me with "Well, at least she's not going into anaphylactic shock." Hmm, at least. They keep checking her tongue to see if it's swelling up and restricting her breathing. They take her and put her on the table to get her 3rd shot of the day. She looks at me like "WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME?!?"

We then spend the next 1.5hrs either checking her vitals and listening to her lungs, trying to unsuccessfully administer meds, or getting puked on. She is just laying in my arms like a limp, red, swollen rag. I've never seen anything so pitiful in my life. The Dr. kept apologizing, saying that at least we 1) now know she's allergic to it, 2) that the steroid shot cleared up her lungs better than the breathing treatments had been and 3) that we wouldn't have to worry about her stopping breathing when we got home since the reaction took a different pathway (ie nausea and hives). Very comforting. The poor thing kept getting the shakes and chills (you all know how this feels if you think about when your nauseous). My heart was seriously breaking for the baby. She never really even cried very much after the initial hive outbreak, which was almost worse. Silent martyrdom.

Now we're home with a zonked out baby and list 10 miles long of meds we are supposed to get in her. Dr. says the reaction should be over within the next 24 hours. I just hope I can get her to eat something sometime soon. If not, we're supposed to take her up to the ER to get some IV fluids. I believe Kaitlin had a similar post when she got her Rotavirus vaccine when she was 2 months, but now this day will live in infamy for CB as her own WORST DAY EVER.