Vacation/ER Visit

So, this summer my parents came up and we were going to head to Branson for a couple of nights to go to Silver Dollar City and just to get away for a while. The night before we left, I made dinner for everyone which included some big jalapenos stuffed with cheese by The Pioneer Woman. I had made them lots of times before and I will add that I have cooked with jalapenos all my life and never have used gloves.

We had dinner, celebrated Kylie's birthday, then cleaned the kitchen before I started getting numbness in my left hand. While everyone went to bed, I stayed up and finished packing before we left for our trip the next morning. I may have fallen asleep for an hour or so, but all I know is I woke up around midnight and my hand was ON FIRE!! I am not even exaggerating, it was extreme pain!

I tried washing my hands over and over but the heat in my hand was not going away. Finally, my mom woke up and came in the kitchen for something to drink. I told her and she said, "Google it!" ha! Isn't that what we do now a days? Why didn't I think of that??

So, I googled it and apparently if you don't use gloves, you can get a jalapeno burn. I am really surprised that this hasn't happened before. There were a million suggestions on what you can do and wouldn't you know that the one that most people preferred was rubbing alcohol and I had NONE in the house! So I tried lemon juice, baking soda, peroxide, rum, tequila, lime juice, milk, and about 20 other combinations. Surprisingly, milk helped me get a little relief so I could sleep some.

Alan woke up around 5 am and I sent him over to his parents' house for some rubbing alcohol. He came back with the alcohol and some remedy for poison oak. I actually should have read the directions and warnings on the poison oak bottle. This will cause trouble on the trip.

A couple of hours later we were packed up and ready to do. Keith and Nancy had invited us over for a wonderful breakfast before we left. I took my cup of milk over since that was the only thing that was helping at this point and we had an amazing breakfast. The heat was starting to subside when Keith brought out hydro-cortisone cream for me to put on my hand. I went ahead and slathered it on thinking, "It can't hurt!" Boy was I wrong!!

Good thing that Nancy handed me Benedryl. I took some and we were off!

About 15 minutes into the trip, I started having trouble swallowing. I noticed that my throat was slowly closing up and it was scary! Especially since I saw no signs of a town, a hospital- all I was seeing was tall mountains and trees! That's not a great sign when you might need medical assistance to breathe! Alan immediately called his parents and they figured out that mixing the cortisone cream with the poison oak rinse could cause a reaction. All I heard was Alan saying, "Oh no. Yeah, a reaction could come on really quickly. We need to get her to a hospital. " I shudder to think what would have happened had I not taken the Benedryl!

By this time I was not only having problems breathing, I was freaking out! Kylie was asking a lot of questions and I made Alan pull over so I could get into my parents car. I felt more comfortable with them and my mom made sure to help me not think about it while the boys both scouted out a hospital.

Once we found a town with a hospital, we followed Alan since it looked like he knew where he was going. Half way to the hospital, my dad saw a big "H" sign so he veered off thinking he could get me there quicker. Turns out it was bogus and Alan didn't come back to find us. Alan later bragged how he got to the hospital before us but I say if you don't have a patient, the point is mute! ha!

We finally got to the ER and when you tell them that you are having trouble breathing, they wheel you into the back immediately!  I should have told them that when I was doubled over with kidney pain and they took their sweet time getting to me, but whatever! Live and learn!

Basically, they didn't listen to me and what had happened. They took an ekg, a chest xray,  and gave me fluids. "Mrs. Rutledge, your heart is fine via the ekg. " Well, duh! I could have told you that! The fluids made me feel so much better and I was out of there in less than an hour. They did give me a mild sedative to calm me down and when I woke up, we were there! What a treat!

I got to go to the room and sleep some more while everyone went swimming in the indoor waterpark. I had a little bit of a hangover feeling the next day but I learned a valuable lesson. Never, ever cut up jalapenos without gloves!