Crazy Weekend

On Friday we went into the clinic for McKenna's regular chemo appointment. Because she received chemo 4 days in a row last week, her port site was covered for those 4 days. When they took the covering off on the 4th day there was a huge rash there. They think that moisture got into the area and became infected. (Easy to happen when your immune system is suppressed.) They started doing the normal blood work they do when we first arrive, but also wanted to see if there was an infection at the port site that might have spread. Her hemaglobin was very low so they needed to give her blood before doing anything else. While we were waiting for her blood to come her rash started itching like crazy. They decided to give her a dose of benadryl intravenously. Almost immediately after giving her the dose of benadryl, she started acting very agitated. She didn't feel right. I yelled for the nurse. She came in and saw that she was hyperventilating and shaking with chills. She started getting oxygen on her and told me to grab the phone and told me numbers to start dialing in order to page for the doctor and other nurses. Her blood pressure dropped and she looked horrible. I was so scared. One of the nurses started flushing her IV with saline to reverse the effect of the benadryl. Within a couple of minutes she was back to "normal". It was so awful to see her that way.
They weren't sure at the time, but thought that any infection that might have been near the port site could have been pushed into the blood stream when they administered the benadryl. It is their policy that if they suspect an infection, they treat with antibiotics until blood tests show differently. They transferred her to the 9th floor of the hospital about an hour later.
On Saturday afternoon we spoke to the inpatient doctors. The blood cultures they took didn't show an infection. The doctor thought that it was a strange reaction to the benadryl with her blood counts being low. He told us that they would send us home later that day. We were so grateful that she didn't have an infection in her port and are grateful to be home today.