Bittersweet

Aleksander, my youngest son is very adorable and special. When Aleksander was 7 months old I gave him some rice pablum. Little did I know that this would change our lives drastically so quickly. Within 5 minutes of eating 1tsp of this pablum he started vomitting. I didn't think to much about it, but then he vomitted again. I then noticed a hive by his eye so I gave him some bendryl. Within 2 minutes his eyes were swollen shut his lips were triple in size and his whole body was red. He was screaming and gasping!

I immediatly rushed him to the hospital were the quickly gave him an epinephrine shot and oral steroid. We then spent the next 6 hours in the hospital were they poked and proded ALeksander to keep checking on his vitals. They discharged us with a prescription for an epipen and told us to us it if necessary.

I kept my emotions intact pretty well. I started crying at the hospital when I knew his was ok. But when I got home it hit me, we had no idea what he was allergic to and why so severe?  What is it? How are we going to find out? How are we going to manage? He is so little, what are we going to do?

We went to see our family doc and he immediatly sent us to a pediatric allergist. 2 days later Aleksander was getting his skin pricked to determine what he was allergic too. The test showed that he was allergic to diary (which was in the pablum), nuts, eggs, and sunflower. We were also sent for blood tests. The blood test confirmed the allergies plus soy and wheat.

What happened to just a nut allergy? No, that would be to simple.  Instead he is allergic to everything. Diary and soy is in everything. Plus I am nursing so that means I could not have anything that he is allergic to. The first month was tough. It wasn't tough because of what he was allergic to, it was tough to educate people. It is really hard for them to understand a diary allergy. So many people respond with "Oh does he get a tummy ache from milk" my response is "No he dies from milk!"

This all happened nine months ago. Is it easier now?-yes and no. We have recently been to a different specialist and Aleksander can now have soy. He is drinking soy milk and loves it. I have cut back to nursing only once a day, which is why I have named this post bittersweet. Bittersweet because I am so happy that he can have soy, but kind of sad that he doesn't have to solely rely on me. We are now dealing with asthma with Aleksander and have been to the emergency room twice with him struggling to breath.

I still struggle with going places (home is our safety zone). This month was Allergy Awareness week and I would like to quote a mom that wrote this in resonse to this question posed- if you could say one thing to people about allergies what would it be?

She wrote "Imagine an open bottle of poison sitting on a lunch table. Ingesting one drop of this poison can cause death within minutes. You see a group of children come in and sit down at this table. Your child is with them. As a parent, what would you do? Would you remove the bottle of poison or would you allow it to stay on the table and just teach your child about what’s in the bottle and tell him or her to stay away? What if the bottle spills and it goes all over the table? Do you wipe it up and allow him or her to continue with the meal? Do you worry that the drop you missed is the one that happens to get onto your child’s sandwich? I know that most of the parents out there would remove the bottle from the table before the children eat. Many families of life threatening food allergies are faced with this situation every single day. It may be milk (butter,icecream, cheese, yogart)or sesame or eggs but it’s still POISON to them. That’s why you see many of us wiping down chairs and tables, bringing in our own food, sitting at a ‘poison free’ table, trying to make celebrations without food, and so on. Parents will do whatever it takes to keep their children safe. Yes, there are children out there with mild food allergies so maybe the poison is more like a thumbtack but many do indeed have ‘life threatening’ allergies and can die!

I am posing this question to you? What would you do? If there actually was an open bottle of ammonia on the kitchen table would you remove the bottle from the table?  Let me know!

Even though it has been a rough go at it for Aleksander, he is on the most part a healthy 16 month old. He is very adorable and goofy. He loves playing and is always in a great mood. He loves his big brother and copies everything he does. We are always prepared with his epipens and inhalers if needed and are always trying to minimize risks.  We are now a very healthy eating family-now processed foods here!

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