Today, we went to the park for a picnic, to walk the trail and play frisbee. We had our picnic and as we were walking to the trail. Knox climbed onto a tree stump. He started crying, I ran to him and there was a fire ant hill next to the tree trunk. I could tell he had been bitten on his feet and hands. I picked him up and comforted him. He saw Hallie and Owen running and he jumped out of my arms and chased after them. I assumed he was fine. A few minutes later we were on the dock looking at turtles. I noticed he was scratching his back so I picked him up to check under his shirt and saw his face. It was extremely red and swollen with tons of white spots all over his face. I showed chad and we rushed to the car. Chad said we should go home and just give him some benadryl. But by the time we buckled him in and started driving off he looked even worse. Chad took one look at him and we decided to drive to the Urgent care center, which was 3 miles away as opposed to the hospital which was in the next town over, and there is quite a bit of traffic to get there. Halfway there, he stopped screaming and started looking really pale. His eyes kept rolling in the back of his head, and I could tell it was getting difficult for him to breathe. I kept telling him to breathe and asking him if he was okay. At one point he nodded and said uh huh. I can't even explain to you how horrible he looked. He seriously looked deformed because of the weird, white bumps on his face. Anyways, we finally got there, rushed him in, they had a nurse come out and check his breathing and pulse, she ran and got the doctor, he immediately called the Ambulance and rushed us to the back to wait. By this point he was extremely pale and looked so horrible. It was hard for me to look at him, he didn't even look like himself. Hallie and Owen were both crying and I decided I should probably find a sitter for them and head to the hospital. I called a friend and she met me and I rushed to the hospital. As I was driving, the nurse from the urgent care center called and said that he got on the ambulance and was stable, but she said at one point it got really bad, she asked if I would call back and tell her how he was doing. I met the ambulance there and they told me he was fine. I carried him into the hospital. The doctor checked him right away, and told me they would watch him. They checked his vitals and we stayed at the hospital for about 3 hours just to make sure he didn't have another reaction. Chad told me that after I had left the urgent care center, that Knox had stopped breathing, turned purple and they couldnt find his pulse. They gave him an epi shot, which helped immediately. I'm so glad I wasnt there. I don't know how I would have handled the situation. I called the nurse back to tell her that he was okay, she told me that they were so worried about him and they were all so scared, she also told me that if we had driven to the hospital, she didn't think he would have made it in time. I'm so glad we decided to go there instead.
Here he is right after he arrived at the hospital..looking 10 times better than he did on the way to the clinic. He still looked pretty bad!
This was 3 hours later, he looked much better!
We weren't able to count his bites until 3 days after this, because he was still so swollen he had 26 bites.
I know God was watching out for my little Knox that day. It was so terrifying. I am so grateful he is alive. We now carry an Epi pen wherever we go just in case it happens again!
