Ambulance and Allergies: Round 2

In summary, just because something is located in the 'dairy-free' section at the store and is a soy product, that clever little ingredient that we know as milk may be lingering. We learned this the hard way yesterday after Audrey snacked on some soy-cheese. Turns out the cheese had dairy protein, or casien, in it. And, unfortunately for our sweet baby girl, she had a much worse reaction than the first time a few months back. Within 20 minutes of eating it, she became stuffy and I knew what was going on. I wanted to wait it out a little bit longer since the last time she didn't need any medication and the reaction subsided on its own. Not this time. By the time the EMT's arrived in our living room (and no, they were not the good-looking firemen from before) Audrey's face was totally red and swollen. By the time we were riding on HWY 26 in the ambulance to St. V's, she was not recognizble because her swelling was so bad. A parent's nightmare. By the time we arrived to the children's ER, Audrey was still in bad-shape, although I could tell she was intrigued by her gearny-ride in her carseat. Although Audrey had swelling all over her face and hives all over her little body, her throat and tongue never swelled (which is VERY good). Her breathing was somewhat distressed having just gotten over her sinus infection and she was not able to suck on her Nuk or nurse right away b/c she couldn't breath out of her little nose. After getting some medicine and waiting some 2 hours later, her hives went down and we could see her sweet blue eyes once again -- as the doctor so fittingly put it, "Your daughter is back".
Audrey will be recieving more allergy testing in the upcoming weeks. Dan and I, and her pediatriciain, are just about certain it was the milk protein in the soy, but after yesterday, I'm not taking any chances. Audrey is doing much better today... {sigh of relief!}