A week before C’s first birthday, we went hiking up in the mountains. I never posted about that day as it has haunted me ever since. I made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I made him a special sandwich without the peanut butter, thinking that he could choke since it was sticky. But when I got them out, he wanted mine so I let him have a bite. The first bite had no peanut butter. He had another bite, this one with peanut butter. One tiny bite. Almost immediately he started coughing, like he was choking on it. Within a minute came the vomit. Neither I nor my husband knew about peanut allergies or that vomit indicated a severe allergic reaction. I had heard of breathing problems with allergic reactions so I watched for that. I even did a calculation in my head of how long it would take me to run with him to get back down the mountain; we were in a relatively remote area. But his breathing was ok and a couple minutes later, he wanted to crawl around on the ground. I thought he was fine. I thought maybe the altitude was bothering him or the baby Bjorn was making his belly hurt. We casually hiked back down the mountain, he had some (rice) milk and we drove home. A few hours later, he vomited again. While changing his puke soaked clothes, I noticed a rash around his stomach. I thought maybe he got into something in the mountains (but really that was unlikely) so I put him in the bath. Whoops! Don't do that if you have hives (I've never had hives in my life). The hives spread like crazy so I called the doctor. They instructed me to bring him to urgent care immediately and that if I'd called when he was vomiting, they would've sent an ambulance. I thought I was going to vomit. As soon as we arrived, they brought him back and gave him benadryl and prednisone and he recovered well.
The doctor at the urgent care instructed us to follow up with our primary care doctor and in a very calm way warned us of the reality of this potentially life threatening allergy. She suggested we get him examined and get an Epi-pen as soon as possible.
We got allergy testing done about 6 weeks later (at National Jewish Hospital which is ranked as one of the top hospitals for this and happens to be conveniently located in Denver) and found that indeed he is allergic to milk, eggs, and severely allergic to peanuts. We have an Epi-pen that goes everywhere he goes now. All of his caretakers know how to use the Epi-pen and have lists of all no-no ingredients. When we vacation this summer, I will be sure my family knows how to use it as well, and when to use it. And I will watch like a hawk to make sure he’s not given anything suspect.
Me on the other hand, I feel like nuts are making me nuts. After finding out the severity of his peanut allergy, I would nearly panic when I would walk by the aisle with the peanuts in them at the grocery store. I’m able to casually pretend to ignore that isle now. I’m getting better little by little. I will work on finding the happy medium where I make people aware of his allergies so he doesn’t get sick but I also don’t end up the annoying crazy mom freaking out because some nice lady gave her son a cookie. I have not had that occur yet but I dread the day. Almost all treats either have nuts or are processed in manufacturing places where there are nuts and cross contamination is possible. And things I didn’t think about like some restaurants use peanut oil to fry or cook with. A lot of dog food is processed with nuts. And of course he’s too little to understand any of this, though I do talk to him about it, and he’s at the stage where everything goes in his mouth. Wade is much less concerned than I am, which is good but makes me slightly crazy too.
I’m trying to educate myself about his allergy but it’s really hard for me to do so. Every time I start looking things up I find stories that break my heart. My heart breaks for the other families and it breaks especially for my son.
Today I am posting a couple photos from the day we hiked; the day we found out he was allergic. They are really nice photos but looking at them makes me wince and gives me a pit in my stomach. I feel like if I share them, somehow that burden may be lifted a little, so here they are. Please enjoy.
The doctor at the urgent care instructed us to follow up with our primary care doctor and in a very calm way warned us of the reality of this potentially life threatening allergy. She suggested we get him examined and get an Epi-pen as soon as possible.
We got allergy testing done about 6 weeks later (at National Jewish Hospital which is ranked as one of the top hospitals for this and happens to be conveniently located in Denver) and found that indeed he is allergic to milk, eggs, and severely allergic to peanuts. We have an Epi-pen that goes everywhere he goes now. All of his caretakers know how to use the Epi-pen and have lists of all no-no ingredients. When we vacation this summer, I will be sure my family knows how to use it as well, and when to use it. And I will watch like a hawk to make sure he’s not given anything suspect.
Me on the other hand, I feel like nuts are making me nuts. After finding out the severity of his peanut allergy, I would nearly panic when I would walk by the aisle with the peanuts in them at the grocery store. I’m able to casually pretend to ignore that isle now. I’m getting better little by little. I will work on finding the happy medium where I make people aware of his allergies so he doesn’t get sick but I also don’t end up the annoying crazy mom freaking out because some nice lady gave her son a cookie. I have not had that occur yet but I dread the day. Almost all treats either have nuts or are processed in manufacturing places where there are nuts and cross contamination is possible. And things I didn’t think about like some restaurants use peanut oil to fry or cook with. A lot of dog food is processed with nuts. And of course he’s too little to understand any of this, though I do talk to him about it, and he’s at the stage where everything goes in his mouth. Wade is much less concerned than I am, which is good but makes me slightly crazy too.
I’m trying to educate myself about his allergy but it’s really hard for me to do so. Every time I start looking things up I find stories that break my heart. My heart breaks for the other families and it breaks especially for my son.
Today I am posting a couple photos from the day we hiked; the day we found out he was allergic. They are really nice photos but looking at them makes me wince and gives me a pit in my stomach. I feel like if I share them, somehow that burden may be lifted a little, so here they are. Please enjoy.
This picture was taken as he was starting to cough from the peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
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