Moms Talk: Living with Food Allergies

It happened on Good Friday, 2007. My husband and I nervously stood together in the small and crowded hospital room listening to the doctor as she explained to us that our son, Kip, had experienced an anaphylactic reaction after eating his first peanut butter cracker. She told us to get to an allergist as soon as possible and to keep Kip away from nuts.

I looked at my son, 14 months old at the time. His hives had disappeared, and he was no longer pink from head to toe. It was hard to believe that just a few hours before, I was racing him to the hospital, praying that I could find it, frantic, while he was in the back seat crying and vomiting.

As he sat there, aside from the fact that he was still hooked up to some monitors, he looked perfectly normal. But from that moment on, life was no longer going to be the same.

A few days later, my husband and I left the allergist's office and joined the ever increasing number of parents who have been told that if their child eats a peanut, even a microscopic amount, he or she could die within 20 minutes unless injected with epinephrine.

I'd like to say that I walked away from our allergist calmly digesting the information, chin up and ready to face the challenge. Instead, I was riddled with anxiety.

Suddenly, I walked through a world where traces of peanuts lurked on every surface – grocery carts, nursery toys, the hands and mouths of children, restaurant tables, playground equipment. My purses and pockets bulged with handwipes, my only defense. The neon green bag which holds Kip's Epipen, an auto-injector of ephinephrine, and continually bounces against my purse, served as a continual reminder that we were no longer permitted to live “care-free.”

The shadow of “what if” would cling to every spoonful of food Kip put in his mouth.

The four years since have been filled with lessons: How to educate family and caregivers about what Kip can eat and how to treat a reaction; How to stop worrying about what people might think when you ask them to not bring peanut products to the soccer game; How to manage anxiety when you spot the kid eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich at the playground. And the hardest lesson of all, how to let your child be a child, and trust that you've done all that you can to educate and protect him or her. I'm still working on that last lesson, daily. 

Right now we try to live life cautiously and optimistically. We celebrate the little things like the discovery of a new “safe” place to eat. Recently, we discovered peanut and nut free donuts at in Minnetonka. The emotion welled up inside me when I showed Kip the case of donuts and for the first time said, “Go ahead, choose any one that you want.” 

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To learn more about the growing issue of food allergies check out the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network (FAAN). For a support group closer to home, check out the Food Allergy Support Group of Minnesota.