Anaphylaxis

I guess they give you an Epi-Pen 'cause they think you might need it.  Despite the ads, you really don't have to ask your doctor if Epi-pen is right for you.  If you have life-threatening allergic reactions, then someone is going to prescribe one for you.  They'll teach you how to use it.  Then you'll go home, put it in the diaper bag or purse and hope you never have to use it.

Nate's allergies are a problematic set from an anxiety standpoint because a lot of the stuff he is "allergic" to is really better defined as an intolerance.  If he gets milk or soy or peanuts he's not going to stop breathing.  He's just going to throw up, and probably not until hours later.  What we've seen from beans and peas has been only hives and a stomach ache.  Even the sesame, which is the worse we have seen to date, resulted in hives and vomiting that went away with benadryl.  OK, and yes, he did develop some stridor, but he never needed epinephrine and he got better before we went to the hospital.  And eggs?  Well, we avoid eggs.  We don't keep the crumbly liquid little devils in the house because we've never seen what happens and frankly don't want to.  His blood and skin testing for egg was so over the top impressive that we avoided it on principle for a while and when we finally got brave enough to let them into the house, Nate got a whole body skin rash after I put lotion on him after touching a hard boiled egg.  So, no, then.  No eggs 'round here.

It turns out, though, that danger can be lurking where you least expect it.
In a 1 1/2 pound Costco bag of pine nuts.
When Nate, cruising around the kitchen while we were getting ready for dinner, asked if he could try some, I said yes.  He's never had problems with nuts.  Eats almond butter, had cashews on the way to school in the morning that very morning, and loves macadamia nuts, but who doesn't really?

He loved the pine nuts, too.  He was smiling and scooping them into his mouth.  At some point he stopped and told me "some of those pine nuts taste kind of yucky" and requested some juice to get the taste out.  He spilled rather than drank his juice but left the kitchen to work on a puzzle in the living room.  It was dark in there, so I didn't notice the hives on his face until the sight of him scratching his tongue made me take a closer look.

With hives erupting on his face and the ongoing tongue scratching Dave and I rushed him upstairs for some benadryl.  Still, he quickly got worse with a cough, some gagging, and a speech impediment that sounded like he was trying to talk around a mouthful of marbles.

Here's what it's like to use the Epi-pen.  First of all, you'd better have a helpful adult ready to subdue the toddler.  Secondly, you are not going to remember how to use it and reading the directions when you are just a shade below panic is not easy.  The click of the needle release mechanism sounds like a gun went off and the baby screams "I don't like that pokey thing!" over and over in a voice made horrible by his too small throat and too large tongue and too copious saliva. You feel brilliant to have remembered to count to ten before pulling the needle out.  Then he cries and retches until the fire truck pulls up, sirens and lights on, and he is suddenly way more fascinated with the outside world than he is with his own misery.

A little unsolicited advice:  If an ambulance comes to your house, ride it to the hospital even if the driver doesn't think you need it.  Because no matter how good the Epi-pen has made the baby look, if you let the ambulance drive away empty, the epinephrine will start to wear off and you my find yourself in a a car with a screaming toddler who is breaking out in alarmingly red hives and scratching himself bloody while screaming that his tummy hurts and it hurts to breathe.

Later, when the emergency room physician tells you that you saved your child's life, you will feel a little light-headed.  You might even get teary.

You will be incredibly grateful when he is at home the next day, no worse for wear and managing to get on your nerves.

L'shana Tovah!  May 5772 be a year without anaphylaxis!

Up, up, and away

We went to the airshow this last weekend.
Nate has been an airplane ever since.
"You want to cover your ears" he will call from the next room, "There is a loud jet coming!"
"Zzzzzzzzzz" he soars into the room, arms outstretched, and opens his "nose cone" to take his medicine.

This morning he was a helicopter, twirling around the room with one arm over his head and desperately trying to keep his "tail propeller" going at the same time.

Whe he got to school on Monday morning he bounced into class and sat down for breakfast.  "Miss Sharon, we saw some airplanes. And two helicopters.  One was a "Korsky"!"
"A what?"
"A Sakorsky," I told her.
"A what?" she repeated.
"Don't worry," I said, "I hadn't heard of it either."

We also, due to the 9/11 memorial at Somerset, witnessed the landing of Air Force One.
"And we saw Marine One," Nate chimes in when we tell the story.

Oh, yeah, and he got to "fly" a jet too.

Garden Update

I promised some pictures of the watermelons.

From this . . . 

 To this . . . 

 Plus the now famous "secret watermelon" that was hidden in our neighbor's weeds.

Here is the recalcitrant tomato that has grown and grown but refused to turn red, finally showing an early blush.

And finally, a little harvest on its way to becoming our dinner.

I am basically in love with the garden.  Next year we might just till up the whole backyard.