We had no idea the turn our lives would take when we learned that K had food allergies. He also has asthma and eczema, so the trio can make each other worse. There have been several food allergy deaths already this year and the foundations that support families with food allergies have been active in reminding parents to be their child's advocate. I sat up at daycare yesterday for an hour visiting with the lady who makes the lunches and the director. We reviewed K's allergies, the signs of a reaction, the action plan, and the ultimate goal of having K integrated with the class as close to normal as possible.
This evening he ate a new kind of tater tot. The label was good...there wasn't anything in the bag that should have elicited a reaction, but it did. He developed hives around his mouth and terrible stomach cramps. This is the kid that has such a high pain tolerance that he needed a dedicated pain management team at the hospital. So if he said that pain was bad, it was bad. Those two symptoms alone put him on the edge between needing benadryl and needing an epi-pen. We dosed him the highest level of benadryl we could and watched. Within 5 minutes the hives had faded about 50% and the stomach pain couldn't compete with an episode of Pocoyo. We're here two hours later and he's mostly saying that his stomach doesn't hurt. If I press him hard, he says it hurts a little. I'm not sure what to believe. At 4 years old, it depends on what the truth is, what's on tv, what he's playing with, and if he's on a roll of saying yes or no repetitively.
It's a life of always worrying...watching...waiting. Every itch. Every cough. Every pain. It's hard to imagine what it's like to not worry every day about your child having a life threatening reaction. And his stuttering has been much more pronounced the past few days. I think we need a calm weekend to veg out and watch movies.
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