Scorpion Sting with a Hospital experience.

Being silly after her nap

Last night was one of the most scary moments of my mommyhood thus far.  Jillian was getting ready for her shower and she ran into her room to get her PJs and stepped on her scorpion.  Henry and I have both been stung before, so it is not a surprised that there was one on the floor.  But it was a surprise that she got such a huge dose of toxin that we had to rush her to the hospital.  She half squashed the scorpion with her foot, so the sting was on her toe.  She complained a little at first, but a little ice and she seemed to be okay.  No worse for the wear.  But about 15 minutes after the sting she started complaining that it was hurting up her leg.  Which is normal...the toxin travels up your nerve, but how do you tell a three year old to describe the pain.  It kind of feels like there are ants crawling on you.  Then it went into her bottom and back and she was pretty upset, so I hopped into the shower with her hoping that would calm her down.  That is when things got really ugly.  She started shaking and for lack of a better term, posturing (like during a seizure), and salivating out of the mouth.  So, I quickly hopped out of the shower with her, got dressed and we all hopped in the car and out to the hospital we went.  Very scary car ride because I was worried she was going to stop breathing.  But she made it okay.  Thank goodness we are close!  She was full on...reacting.  They could not get an accurate weight because she was shaking so hard. Plus, she started having hypervisiualzation/roving eyes, and vomiting.  The took us right back and got an IV in and had to give her 4 vials of the anti-venom.   The Dr. was really good and so were the nurses.  The Dr said she didn't want to give her anything right away to calm her because once the antivenom worked she would pass out. She was worried because she is so small that if she gave her something once the anti-venom worked she would stop breathing (too much relaxing stuff in her body to process)...so we had to wait it out.  It was the longest hour of my life.  Oxygen Sat was always good, but her heartbeat was about 120 and she was so pink in the face like she had been running!  One thing is for sure.  Jillian is a fighter.  At one point, during the third vial, she started getting a little bit lucid and she started screaming "LET ME GO!!!" and there were 4 adults holding her down.  I was holding her upper body, Andrew was on her legs, and the nurse and Dr. were holding her arm down with the IV.  And she still won the battle and ripped out the first IV during the fourth vial and they had to get the second IV in.  Lucky by that time she had calmed down quite a bit.  After the fourth vial she passed out and she slept for about an hour.  Somewhere in the chaos, my mom was able to come and take Henry. Which was good because we were not so sure how long we were going to be there. After her nap, she woke up in pretty good spirits considering.  She still didn't like the IV, but at least we were not having to hold her down because she understood that she needed to keep her arm still. Then we were discharged.  She still had the occasional twitch, but her body would be able to take care of the rest.  She slept with us so we could watch her that night, but the next morning she was fine.  No numbness and no real memory of the scary part.  That would be for mommy and daddy to remember.  Thank goodness for the advances in science and Anti-Venom and thank goodness for healthy children :-).

Happy she is feeling better!