Saturday Excitment

*warning, there may be some graphic information in this post.

Well, that was not quite how I envisioned my Saturday going...

Mr husband stayed home with the boys while I went out and ran a few errands. Picked up a shirt, went to Walmart, tried on some clothes there, but while I was in the check out line I started to feel overwhelmingly nauseous. It came on so suddenly I considered putting my items down and making a break for the bathroom. The wave of nausea seemed to ebb a little, so I continued waiting in the checkout line. I noticed my palms began to get itchy, and I thought that was quite strange.

I paid for my items, and high tailed it to the van. The fresh air felt good and sort of eased the nausea again. But when I got to the van, I once again was overwhelmed, and ended up getting sick into a bucket we had in the van. I was kind of freaking out at that point, wishing I'd just stayed home because this was really scary. And then I noticed my tongue was hurting. It felt like pins and needles. My hands got itchier, and began to swell. I thought I'd better hit the road and fast so I could make it home before I got sick again. I didn't make it. I had to pull over and got sick again. There was a very bad pain in the center of my chest, and I started to panic, thinking I was having a heart attack or something. I tried to get home again, but had to pull over because I was so scared. I called 911 and an ambulance took me to Surrey Memorial Hospital.

The paramedic told me I was having an allergic reaction to something, but that he would take good care of me. He gave me Benadryl. We made our way to the Hospital and I was feeling less nauseous, but I was really swelling up and getting itchy all over. My tongue was swelling. I was also feeling a lot of bowel cramps, and I felt I really needed to get to a bathroom.

Once at the hospital, they got me into the ER ICU and got me set up with an IV. One nurse was referring to me as a "cherry tomato" because I was so red all over. I convinced her to help me to the bathroom, but I started to get really light headed there and couldn't breath. I just remember everything was splotchy bright white and the air felt really really cold while I tried to gulp it in. I made it back to the bed, but just barely, someone said I was cyanotic and they gave me a shot of epinephrine, and an oxygen mask.

Things are kind of blurry from there, I remember asking to call my husband, and then I sort of dozed in and out of consciousness, a Doctor came to see me, medicine was added to my IV, and then I dozed again, and my parents were there. I felt super dopey, I think that was from the benadryl. And very cold and jittery, from the epinephrine. My parents stayed for a little while. My poor mother had to help me use the bathroom. We noticed there might be blood in my expulsion. The nurses didn't seem too concerned by that.

I was held in the hospital for several hours, they wanted to make sure it didn't happen again. When the Doctor came to release me, he gave me a prescription for an Epi Pen, and told me I needed to follow up with an allergist. He explained to me that this was a very serious reaction, and if I had waited much longer to call, I could've died.


Josh has me on "house arrest" until we get the Epi Pen. I got a pretty decent amount of rest last night, though I was up quite a bit with bowel cramps. I'm feeling pretty weak overall. I'm afraid to eat anything. The boys are being very gentle with mommy. I sure wish I had a clue as to what could've caused this, I don't have any known allergies, so it's really strange that this just happened out of the blue. Praying for answers, and to feel like myself again.

I've written this for memory, mine is terrible and I will want to recall the details later on. Also, in case anyone experiences symptoms like this, maybe it'll help to have read this.