M had bday party at a bounce place this weekend. It's the most relaxed I'd ever been prior to a party because the host family is awesome. They are also a MLTFA family with a similar tight comfort zone. We've even made some food for each others children (with much consultation). Add to that the fact M doesn't really put his fingers in mouth anymore and this was going to be a walk in the park!
All of us moms were sitting on a bench in the middle of this warehouse-like room chatting and watching our cherubs. All of a sudden the mom to my left whips out a pb Cliff bar. Surely she won't open it in this "No food beyond this point" area! And if she does, surely she'll pull the wrapper back discretely and take little bites and then wipe her hands. After all, she's a class mom. She knows there are multiple food allergies in the class, including peanut! But no. No. What she does is pulverize that Cliff bar before she opens it. Breaking it into a million pieces and creating dust and crumbs. She eats it slowly with her fingers and probably coats the entire front of her person in peanut protein. At one point M ran over to ask me a question and I just about clotheslined him in an attempt to keep him away from this peanut person!
I knew the bouncing was soon to be over and we'd be moving to the party room where the kids would be eating. I thought I'd offer Mrs. Peanut a wipe, but as I dug into my bag, I realized I'd just used my last hand wipe. I walked over to the hostess and asked her to keep an eye on M and told her I was running out to the car for more wipes. Her guy's allergies don't include peanut so I didn't want to add to her stress load by telling her about peanut lady at this point.
By the time I ran back in (Maybe 90 seconds tops) the kids had made their way to the party room. The hostess was passing out pizza and chips and M had soda in front of him. I handed him a wipe. Mrs. peanut was not right there at that moment. Like all the kids, M was hot and sweaty. His face was beet red. He was coughing a bit. All normal stuff for a kiddo who's had a slight cold that's been running and jumping like a maniac for an hour and a half, right? Then he says his throat hurts. The cough seems a bit too persistent. I panic now. I pull the hostess aside and ask about Mrs. Peanut's movements in the moments I was gone. She touched none of the food but did pour soda. The hostess and I sat with M and stared at the poor kid.
When we left a bit later I really thought maybe it been some type of reaction because he looked at me and said "That's really weird mom, my throat feels so much better now". I limited his physical activity for the rest of the night which angered him greatly (we have 19+ inches of snow in our yard right now!) and stared at him a whole lot more. Nothing more yesterday.
Then this morning. He woke up fine. Then while we were eating a very boring breakfast of boring things we eat daily, a large painful hive/welt sprouted above his upper lip. I freaked out. Probably much more than that lonely old hive warranted. But
. So I called our allergist to see if she was on call. Thankfully she was and validated my freak out. She thinks it's all related and that he's still twitchy today. She advised Benadryl which made me a little nervous (Just the whole "is this going to mask something, make me less likely to notice" thought process).
So....Thoughts? Was yesterday likely an epi moment? If he hadn't just been involved in activity that accounted for all of the symptoms, I would not have hesitated to do so. Does contact ingestion seem the most likely culprit (cup to hand to pizza to mouth)?
Topic: Didn"t have to happen (Read 3234 times)
