The sting

A few years ago Henry was stung by a wasp and had a very bad reaction. We now carry epi-pens everywhere we go in case it happens again.
Yesterday I was up in my room and Lilli and Henry were downstairs playing. Suddenly I hear Henry scream. Now, if you have never been to my house I must tell you that screaming is not unusual and is often just a part of the playing. I had Oscar run down and make sure no one was actually hurt. Then I hear Henry scream "No, I don't want to die..." and I knew something was actually wrong. Just as I was getting ready to run downstairs Oscar yells up that Henry was stung by a bee or something. I grabbed epi-pens out of my drawer and ran downstairs.
The first thing I had to do was calm Henry down so I could tell if he actually started to have a reaction since I didn't know what kind of insect had bit/stung him. He was hysterical, the poor guy. Lilli kept patting his head and saying "It's ok buddy, your going to be fine. Just take a big breath." In fact I'm surprised at how calm and helpful my almost 4 year old was given the fact that her brother, and even Oscar was freaking out a little, was extremely hysterical.
I finally got him calmed down and convinced that he wasn't going to die, that I knew how to take care of him. He seemed to be doing fine for the moment so I asked him where it had happened and went over to check it out. There was a hornet sitting on the windowsill, so I smashed it. One problem down.
But he had not been stung by a hornet before so I had no idea if he would have a reaction to it or what it would be like if he did. So we turned on a movie and I kept the epi-pens close by just in case. Thankfully we live just down the hill from the children's hospital.
After about 30 minutes he was still doing fine and the major danger of a bad reaction had passed. His foot was a little red around it and it hurt, which are both actually very good things. If you have a local reaction you are much less likely to have a systemic reaction.

I am so grateful though for modern medicine, that I had the comfort of knowing what to do, and that he would be fine, if he did have a reaction. I also realized that we needed to have another talk about his allergy and how it all worked. I think he is much more confident now that he can just come to us and tell us and that we will take care of him. My heart breaks for him and the fear that he felt. What an awful feeling. He knows that he is allergic to some types of insects so he knew there was danger there, but apparently it had been too long since we had talked about it. I took for granted that because I knew he would be fine, that he did too. I mean we talked about it after the first incident but not really a lot since then. Kids forget so much as time passes. Poor guy, but I am so grateful that he is fine, that we didn't need to go to the hospital and I hope that next time he won't be quite so scared. I'm not naive, I know there will be other times, and the $100 + I spend each year on epi-pens that we never use are so worth it knowing that if we ever need to use them that we have them.
In the meantime this is a good reminder to always keep that communication open with the kids and talk about big issues from time to time. Complacency is never okay- comfort is. :) Here's to hoping that I continue wasting my money on unused epi-pens. I'd rather spend thousands of dollars on that than have to use even one of them. For now I will hold my buddy a little closer and thank my father in heaven that he is around to continue to bring joy into our lives.