The Evernight Weekly Writing Challenge - Week 45

What I'm allergic to

Bills.

That's the funny answer. Actually, I'm not allergic to anything. I once thought I had developed an allergy to penicillin after my dentist prescribed amoxicillin because I had broken out in an all-over body rash, but I've since taken the medicine again with no reaction. So I've come to the conclusion that was a fluke.

However, allergies are no joke. My son is highly allergic to cats. We found this out when one morning his eye was swollen shut. His father took him to the doctor (I was at work) and the pediatrician made him go immediately to the emergency room at the hospital. My son had an MRI and in the image you can see his eyeball being pushed out of it's socket due to an abscess on the ocular bone.

He spent a week in the hospital, pumped full of some major antibiotics, which we were told if they didn't work he'd have to have surgery. They had to check his liver functions every hour to make sure the antibiotics didn't damage it. After a week, he had a PICC line put in and I had to administer antibiotics three times a day via the pump. After all was said and done, and many many allergy tests, the doctors concluded he'd had a bad reaction to cat protein (we were living with 4 cats that weren't ours). About a year later, we had moved back to Los Angeles, and he had a playdate. I didn't know the mom had a cat until about an hour later, my son runs up to me and his eyes are almost swollen shut. I had to rush him to Urgent Care and he was administered a steroid shot and placed on a tapering oral dose. After that, I took him every month to an allergist for constant monitoring and more testing. His list of allergies continued to grow. He was basically allergic to anything green. It was like his little body couldn't handle any stimuli. So because of that, and a few other reasons, we moved to Las Vegas. As he got older and grew, along with an area where grass and flowers weren't that common, he's slowly gotten over his allergies.

Now, if he moves will he have issues? Probably.

But no cats.

Allergies are scary. I can't describe the feeling on seeing your little child in a big hospital bed, being poked and prodded almost every hour, in an effort to make sure that abscess didn't spread to his brain. I will always be grateful for all the doctors and nurses who came to make sure he was okay and getting the best care.