The Allergic Mom-Redefined

I recently posted about the boy not having any allergies, however I was slightly premature in publicizing that statement. Two days before his actual birthday he was eating honeydew for the first time and immediately after he developed hives all over his legs. I gave him Benadryl (I highly recommend every parent keeps a bottle for situations like this). Aside from the hives he appeared to be fine, but I trusted my instincts and threw him in the car and off we went to the hospital. They took him in immediately, found that his breathing was compromised, so they hooked him up to wires and gave him meds and we stayed for a few hours until we got the all clear to go home. It could be the honeydew, but it could also be the strawberries he ate during dinner (even though it was his 6th day on strawberries). We will be seeing an allergist soon and hopefully we will figure out exactly what happened and whether this is in fact an allergy. I am just hoping that it was an isolated incident, and that I won’t have to start a new blog titled “The Allergic Boy”!

Since then, we have officially become a honeydew, strawberry and peanut free home. The ER doctor prescribed an Epipen which we carry everywhere we go and we were told to avoid strawberries and honeydew. I spoke with the daycare teacher at length about this, and she seemed to understand the situation (no sharing food, spoons, epipen use etc..).

For obvious reasons, I was not ready to post about this sooner. For so many parents this is their reality, and having to let their child go off to daycare, school, camp, activities, playdates etc, is frightening. It’s one thing to be in this peanut allergy friendly society, but for the kids and adults allergic to eggs, fish, fruits and so on, there are no egg free, fish free or fruit free establishments. Probably because I am so vigilant about my own allergy, avoiding honeydew and strawberries has taken on a whole life of it’s own. While I do think it’s easier to avoid fruits than peanuts, I think it is easier to avoid peanuts than eggs. I am wondering if you were told that you had an allergy, if given a choice, what you would choose to be allergic to? Please share.

:)

J.