Learning to Speak Up - the Hard Way
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- Piecing Together My Son's Milk Allergy
- Don't Let Food Allergies Get You Down
- A Diagnosis of Food Allergy and EE
- A Food Allergy That Reemerged
- First Reaction in 14 Years
By Johanna B.
I have to admit, first of all, that I am a nervous mom by nature. My friends and family know this about me and tend to dismiss whatever they consider to be my worry of the hour. This usually causes me to second-guess myself, too. But with my own allergies as a child, and a long family history of allergies, I knew when my daughter was born that she was definitely at risk for common allergies.
Friends urged me not to worry, even after my daughter’s blood test came back positive for peanut allergy, and one even told me that my daughter, Catie, was more likely to be struck by lightning than to have a serious reaction.
When Catie was 22 months old, I decided to go back to work part-time and send her to child care. I chose a home child care facility that was popular among my friends, and informed the provider about Catie's allergy. Because she was also a friend, I was hesitant to talk to her about worries I had about her child care facility; not least of all that her daughter ate peanut butter on a daily basis.
When I saw a blob of peanut butter on a table, I wiped it up and said cheerily, "Oh, there was some peanut butter on the table, but I wiped it up!" Catie had never had a reaction and I was so afraid of what people thought of me that I didn't think about what was best for Catie. I'll never make that mistake again.
When I picked her up one day after the peanut butter-on-the-table incident, the provider told me Catie had eaten some play dough, but she wasn't worried because it was non-toxic. I noticed some strange red bumps around Catie's mouth, and her cheeks were very flushed, but it was over 100 degrees that day and I figured that was the reason for her strange appearance.
I buckled her in her car seat and headed home. She started to cry and rub her eyes, but I thought she was tired. I stopped for gas and as I was pumping the gas, I started to play my usual peek-a-boo game with her when I noticed her eyes looked very strange. Her face was extremely red and her cheeks seemed swollen. It finally dawned on me what was happening[an allergic reaction].
I weighed driving across town to the emergency room or running a block to her doctor's office. I chose to run. As I ran, I was comforted by the fact that, even as her face continued to swell, her cries remained strong. We made it to the office just as it was closing. She got a high dose of antihistamine and a liquid steroid, and her symptoms subsided.
When I called the child care provider to tell her what happened, she said she didn't think there was any way Catie could have come in contact with peanuts, as she had "cleaned up very well" after her daughter had had a peanut butter bar for breakfast. We concluded that one of the children must have had peanut butter on his or her hands and played with the play dough before Catie ate it.
The child care provider decided that it was too much trouble to ban peanuts from her house, so she informed me that Catie was no longer welcome. I wish that it hadn't taken such a terrible event for me to feel confident in explaining Catie's allergy to people, and to be firm about the kind of steps that need to be taken to keep her safe. I now know that nothing is more important than Catie's safety, and if that means I lose some friends, I figure they aren't friends worth having.
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