Well, That was an Interesting 24 Hours!

Last Sunday morning, Jordyn had a weird allergic reaction type thing to cinnamon. Thing is, she's had cinnamon countless times before, with no problem at all. That was only part of what made it weird. It was also only a contact thing - literally, wherever cinnamon came into contact with her skin, it got red, and in one spot, it also puffed up like a welt or hive. That one was my fault... I was trying to figure out what was causing the reaction, and while I was pretty sure it was the cinnamon, I wasn't positive. So, idiot that I am, I put cinnamon on a spot on her wrist that hadn't reacted, and within a couple of minutes, the spot was red. I wiped it off, but it continued to be red and puffed up into a welt. The other weird part was, although she'd been eating it, her lips and mouth and tongue all seemed to be fine (from what I could see inside her mouth). Her breathing was completely fine. The redness didn't seem to be itchy or to bother her in any way.

I considered calling her doctor, but I didn't.  I just kept a really good eye on her for the next few hours, and the redness went away in less than an hour. Since it was Sunday, I knew I'd end up speaking to whoever was on call at her doctor's office, and since they don't have Sunday office hours, they'd possibly end up telling me to take her to the emergency department (where I work). Believe me - if she needed to go, I would have taken her!! I had a very low threshold for calling 911 if she started having any signs of respiratory distress. And then I'd have given her benadryl while I was waiting for the ambulance.

You can see the redness on her cheek pretty well here.

This was her wrist/arm that was accidentally exposed.

This is the wrist/arm that I put cinnamon on, and the one spot that became a welt. You can see how happy she was about me holding her still to take the picture!

I spoke with the nurse at her doctor's office on Monday, and she said she was going to check with the doctor about potential allergy testing for cinnamon and anything else that's commonly tested for with cinnamon, and that she would let me know. But that in the meantime, I shouldn't give her anything with cinnamon in or on it. The doctor called me back later in the afternoon, and said she was highly doubtful it was an allergy, and that cinnamon fairly commonly causes contact dermatitis, which is what she thinks happened. She said I should test this theory (since she didn't have any severe symptoms) by giving Jordyn something to eat with cinnamon, without allowing it to get on her skin (as in, feed it to her with a spoon and not let her feed herself). If she doesn't have any reaction, then it's not really an allergy, and the rash was just because of the contact with her skin. I haven't done this yet, but I'm planning to soon, with benadryl and a phone nearby, just in case.

Later on Sunday we had just gotten home from grocery shopping, and I was putting away the groceries in the kitchen, when there was one of those "it's too quiet" moments... I went to investigate, and found this:

Oh yes, that would be Jordyn eating Butt Paste (a diaper rash cream). She was standing up and sort of squatting over the container when I found her, and my first reaction was to laugh. I also immediately decided I had to get a picture first before cleaning her up, so I sat her down just inside the door to the bathroom and ran to get my phone. Not sure I had my priorities straight, but it was damn funny! I later posted the picture on facebook with the caption, "Wait, you mean to tell me that Butt Paste is only for my tushy, and isn't also supposed to also be a tasty snack??". It got a lot of laughs.

I cleaned her up, and then looked at the container to see if it said anything about what to do if it was ingested. Of course it said to seek medical attention immediately or to call poison control. I wasn't too concerned, because I was pretty sure she hadn't actually eaten very much of it, and she was acting totally fine. But I called, because it said to, and the guy told me it's all-natural and totally non-toxic, and it's nothing to worry about. He did caution me that if she ate too much of it, it could give her diarrhea.

That didn't happen. But what did happen was that she vomited at some point in the middle of the night.

Jordyn hasn't woken up in the middle of the night in a while now, ever since I successfully Ferberized her. :) :) :) But that night, at around 2:15am, she cried out in her sleep (at least I think she was still asleep) for a few seconds. Enough to wake me up, at least halfway. But before I could wake up enough to process what was happening and get out of bed to go check on her, she stopped and was totally silent. I checked the video monitor, and she had fallen back to sleep. So I did the same. But when she woke up for the day later in the morning and I went to get her out of her crib, I found vomit all over her sheet, her sleep sack, and the arms of her long-sleeve pajamas. It was basically whole chunks of undigested food from dinner, as opposed to the more liquidy variety of vomit (sorry). I'm assuming she vomited when she cried in the middle of the night, as the vomit was cold, so obviously it hadn't just happened (sorry again). I felt so bad for not checking on her and for her having slept for hours in her own vomit. As I say to Jordyn, "oh gross!". I have no idea if this incident was connected to the Butt Paste incident from earlier in the day, but it was weird that they happened so close together. Jordyn's never vomited like that before.

I ran this by the nurse from her doctor's office on Monday, and she said that while allergic reactions can sometimes cause a child to vomit, it would've been closer to the rest of the reaction. She said it could have been from the Butt Paste, but it also could have been from her dinner, which was fish with a kind of spicy sauce on it. She likes spicy/flavorful foods, and she's never vomited from them before, but she'd never had this particular dish before, either (it was a Gorton's pre-seasoned fish that you just bake and serve). So, who knows.

But yeah, it was a crazy 24 hours. Cinnamon reaction, Butt Paste ingestion, and vomit, quite possibly all unrelated to each other.