Yesterday held another of those struggles that I wish I could change.
Here’s the short version: last night Malia was in the emergency room having an allergic reaction to peanuts. She is fine, but it was not our happiest night ever.
Here’s the long version: Due to Matthew’s food allergies, we’ve been watchful with Malia ever since she was newborn. Luckily, she seemed to have no problems. By the time she was three, the only thing we hadn’t fed her was nuts. Last summer she had a few peanut butter M&M’s by mistake. We knew that any reaction she was going to have would not be the first time she ate peanuts, but the second or third time so we have been on the watch. I’ve known that we needed to know what would happen before she went to kindergarten, but it’s a scary thing and I’ve been avoiding it.
Last night avoidance time was over. Malia had a stash of candy from her Valentine’s party at school and after dinner she started eating one of those one bite Snickers bars. I didn’t realize what she was eating until she told me she didn’t like it and said her mouth hurt and she started coughing. My heart sank. Honestly, what I felt was a bit of dread.
We’re experienced food allergy parents here, so we decided to watch for a while to see how things would go. If things had gotten too scary, we knew we had Matthew’s Epipens and our allergist’s permission to use them on another child. An hour and a half later, the coughing had worsened and Malia had lots of mucus in her throat. She threw up and felt better for a little bit, then the coughing worsened and she threw up again. She started scratching at her ear and we noticed that it was red and a bit swollen. That was when we decided it was time to take her to the Instacare. Kev and Nathan took her and I stayed home and talked Matthew down. He was freaking out and needed some reassurance that everything would be ok.
At the Instacare, the doc said that technically she was in anaphylaxis and so per clinic policy, she was transferred to the emergency room. The doc there felt like epinephrine was overkill (which made me feel better about our wait and watch decision) but they loaded her up with a couple of other things. Through it all, Malia was a trooper. Kev said she only cried once when they put the IV in and by the time I got there, she was calm and in complete control of the remote. She was also developing more hives. But she was acting like herself, including taking selfies and a million other pictures. After a few hours of meds and observation, she was sent home with instructions to give her regular doses of Benadryl for two days to prevent any delayed reactions. So in terms of allergic reactions, it could have been much worse.
This is my sad kid. All the blotchy redness you can see on the bridge of her nose and her cheek is actually hives. They were crawling down her neck and onto her chest as well.
In spite of everything, she still grinned for her selfie.
I get asked surprisingly often how we found out that Matthew has food allergies. My answer is always, “The scary way.” Honestly, I don’t think there is a not scary way to find these things out. Even being as watchful as I have been and knowing what I do, last night was scary. It would be for any parent.
When I woke up this morning, the first thought I had was that Malia won’t be able to eat at Kneaders anymore. That is her favorite place so it was a sad thought. We don’t know yet how severe her allergy is although based on her reaction last night I don’t think it is as severe as Matthew’s. But it is still going to mean changing some of our food routines. We won’t be able to just stop for lunch whenever and wherever we want. Eating out will require some research in advance to see how each establishment handles nuts. She won’t be able to eat things baked at local bakeries which will be good for my waistline but sad for our occasional cookie or doughnut runs. She will need to be careful about what candy she eats, especially chocolate. I know it’s not the end of the world, but it is disappointing. She looked terribly sad this morning when we told her she wouldn’t be able to eat M&M’s.
This is not what I wanted for her. It is not what I want for Matthew either, but it is one of those things that I can’t fix. All I can do is try my hardest to make their lives as normal as possible and help them feel included in all of life’s festivities.
I know that was a lot of negativity just now. But sometimes I just need to brain dump it all so I can put on my big girl panties and deal with it. So now I need to remind myself that being allergic to just peanuts is nowhere near as hard as being allergic to all of Matthew’s stuff. Malia will still have lots of options. We just need to readjust our thinking. But we’ll figure it out, just like we always do.
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