Since birth she has been such an amazing little person. It wasn't long after her birth that her father and I noticed how sensitive her skin was. She was constantly breaking out and scratching. Non-stop. SCRATCHING. She was always making herself bleed from this scratching. We of course took her to the Dr and they (of course) diagnosed her with having Eczema. Liv's older brother had Eczema as an infant so we just accepted this and moved on...so we thought.
Fast forward through an entire YEAR of severe flare ups, TONS of Aquaphor (we lovingly referred to it as her grease) and constant frustration over her skin. In the Fall of 2006 we flew across the country to DE and celebrated Liv's first birthday, this would also go down as her first "true" allergic reaction. When she did the traditional first birthday "cake smash" she really wasn't too fond of the cake. I just attributed her behavior to being over stimulated and exhausted so we put her in a bath. As the time passed I noticed she was scratching at her ears something awful (a LOT more than usual), had a runny nose and extremely fussy. Being the almost embarrassingly over prepared mom that I am, I had Benadryl on hand. I assumed she was reacting to her cousin's soap from the bath and gave her a dose of the Benadryl. Almost immediately she was calmed and sound asleep in my arms -- crisis averted (if only I had known just how serious of a crisis we were experiencing). The next day we flew back to KS and all in the world was well again. Who knew her first birthday would be such a turning point in life as we knew it?
About a month after her first birthday our lives changed forever. It was at this point in time I thought I would try my hand at giving Liv scrambled eggs. I KNOW (and knew then) that you should wait til they are two, but seriously...who follows ALL the guidelines on what to feed your infant/toddler and when?! I obviously did not. Anyway, back to the story...I made her one scrambled egg, sat her in her sassy seat and served her. I must have at some point in time read that eggs have a good possibility of causing allergic reactions because I watched her...I mean I WATCHED her try this new food. I can still recall having this anxious feeling in my gut that maybe this wasn't such a good idea...even IF other mommies were trying this with their children the same age as Liv. Almost immediately following her first bite she was screaming....SCREAMING. I thought I was imagining her face turning red, but with a quickness her eyes started swelling and I BOLTED into a frenzy of action! I sent my son running to grab a neighbor/friend, grabbed Liv, all but threw her into her car seat, and started driving to the hospital. I barely even stopped the car (in fact, I'm not entirely sure that I DID come to a complete stop) to let my son and friend into the car. It took approx 10 minutes for me to make the drive to the hospital and in that time my poor girls eyes were swollen shut. Completely. Shut.
At the hospital she was given a dose of Benadryl and stayed a few hours for observation. She quickly recovered and we were sent home with instructions to avoid egg....at all costs. I instantly accepted this and started rummaging through all of Liv's snacks and foods...tossing anything that had an inkling of egg in it.
This is a rather long post, but I think I'm at a good stopping point. I will continue posting on the past to get this blog up to date.
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