happy 3rd birthday, munchkin
Find my birth story for my daughter here. Like my son, she is a blessing who I love so much, even when she is driving me crazy.
I've never written about it here, but we actually came close to losing our little boo-boo almost two years ago. Although we were aware that there was a danger of having a food allergy in our family because of lots of environmental allergies and my husband being allergic to eggs when he was little, we didn't worry about it that much. Our son had had no problems, and we stupidly assumed our daughter was the same. We were somewhat careful, but never checked food labels or really monitored what we ate around her.
In March of 2005, our daughter was 16 months old and had lots of eczema, but other than that seemed to be a happy baby. She had been eating regular baby food and table food for a while. My mom and I took both the kids to a local bakery one day, because the kids wanted cookies. We picked out what appeared to be a plain M&M cookie. My son ate most of it, and my daughter took a couple of bites and didn't want anymore.
An hour later, at my mother's house, my daughter broke out in bright red hives all over her body. She began to wheeze and cough. Frightened, we gave her some Benadryl, and then my mother (THANK GOD) said we needed to call 911, because something bad was happening. The ambulance came, the paramedics took one look, and said, "We need to go."
For the second time in my life, I ended up in the back of an ambulance, only with my child as the patient this time, which was much worse. The paramedic got an IV into her, and started loading her up with more Benadryl through it. When we got to the emergency room, it was a flurry of doctors and nurses and more injections into the IV, this time with steroid medication to stop the reaction. We also tried to figure out what the hell had caused the reaction - was it a roll with fried clams in it from lunch? What could it possibly be?
My mother, who was still at her house with my son, called the bakery we had been to. It turns out we had gotten a PEANUT BUTTER M&M cookie. It hadn't been labeled, and we had no idea that it was peanut butter, or we NEVER would have given any to my daughter.
The hospital kept my daughter overnight for observation, still injecting steroids into her IV periodically. By morning, she was fine. I, however, have never really gotten over it, and although I like peanut butter, I still get upset/anxious when I see ads for it on TV. I ended up giving away a lot of her Halloween candy, just because we can't have it in the house. This is fine - I want her to enjoy trick-or-treating with her brother, and she doesn't care about how much candy she had. I just would love it if the whole world understood a peanut allergy, how deadly it is, and realize they need to be careful with it. I know it's really hard for some people, even those who have kids of their own, to "get it," but I wish they would just for a few minutes stop and think about what it means to have a simple food item be a silent killer to their children.
I've never written about it here, but we actually came close to losing our little boo-boo almost two years ago. Although we were aware that there was a danger of having a food allergy in our family because of lots of environmental allergies and my husband being allergic to eggs when he was little, we didn't worry about it that much. Our son had had no problems, and we stupidly assumed our daughter was the same. We were somewhat careful, but never checked food labels or really monitored what we ate around her.
In March of 2005, our daughter was 16 months old and had lots of eczema, but other than that seemed to be a happy baby. She had been eating regular baby food and table food for a while. My mom and I took both the kids to a local bakery one day, because the kids wanted cookies. We picked out what appeared to be a plain M&M cookie. My son ate most of it, and my daughter took a couple of bites and didn't want anymore.
An hour later, at my mother's house, my daughter broke out in bright red hives all over her body. She began to wheeze and cough. Frightened, we gave her some Benadryl, and then my mother (THANK GOD) said we needed to call 911, because something bad was happening. The ambulance came, the paramedics took one look, and said, "We need to go."
For the second time in my life, I ended up in the back of an ambulance, only with my child as the patient this time, which was much worse. The paramedic got an IV into her, and started loading her up with more Benadryl through it. When we got to the emergency room, it was a flurry of doctors and nurses and more injections into the IV, this time with steroid medication to stop the reaction. We also tried to figure out what the hell had caused the reaction - was it a roll with fried clams in it from lunch? What could it possibly be?
My mother, who was still at her house with my son, called the bakery we had been to. It turns out we had gotten a PEANUT BUTTER M&M cookie. It hadn't been labeled, and we had no idea that it was peanut butter, or we NEVER would have given any to my daughter.
The hospital kept my daughter overnight for observation, still injecting steroids into her IV periodically. By morning, she was fine. I, however, have never really gotten over it, and although I like peanut butter, I still get upset/anxious when I see ads for it on TV. I ended up giving away a lot of her Halloween candy, just because we can't have it in the house. This is fine - I want her to enjoy trick-or-treating with her brother, and she doesn't care about how much candy she had. I just would love it if the whole world understood a peanut allergy, how deadly it is, and realize they need to be careful with it. I know it's really hard for some people, even those who have kids of their own, to "get it," but I wish they would just for a few minutes stop and think about what it means to have a simple food item be a silent killer to their children.