Joseph Met An Allergy

A while back, I wrote about how Joseph would claim an allergy to anything that he didn't like.  Well, this week we discovered he has a bona fide allergy to fire ants.  We went to our neighborhood playground on Monday and although Joseph had seen the anthills, he forgot about them and stepped on one, not realizing what he'd done until he started feeling the bites on his legs.  We left the playground about 10 minutes after he got bitten, and by the time we were in the car he was complaining wildly about his eyes itching and his ears itching and he was pretty distressed.  When we got home, I gave him some benadryl and looked up "ant bite first aid" on the computer.  He was also complaining of stomach pain and his eyes and lips were swelling and he was getting hives all over, especially his face.  I realized that he had enough serious symptoms that I needed to take him somewhere.  So I called my Father-in-law and asked if he was available to watch Simon and Clara for me.  "Right now?" he asked. "Yes, right now."  He said he would be right over, hung up and never even asked me why.  I greatly appreciated that!  About five minutes later, he was at our house and I took Joseph to the Urgent Care clinic near us.  They triaged him right away and took him back to be seen within 5-10 minutes of our arrival.  Fortunately, he never had any trouble breathing, and I remained calm the whole time.  They did give him an injection of epinephrine and some oral Prednisone.    We remained for observation for another hour as all his symptoms subsided.   They wrote us a script for EpiPen Jr. and recommended evaluation with an allergist and possible desensitization treatment.  I guess we'll try to do that when we get back from our vacations and hope he doesn't run into any more ants!