Anyone BUT Us!!!
I thought it pertinent to interrupt the Week of Costa Rica blog entries for an important and serious update. I mentioned in a prior post that Wesley gave us a bad scare as we were landing in Costa Rica and that we thought it could be related to the Peanut Butter Crackers. Wesley had his 15 month check up the week after we returned. We told our doctor of the incident which quickly earned Wesley a blood test for peanut and tree nut allergies. The blood draw was not a fun experience for Wesley or me but we got through it and he was a champ.
Chris, Wesley and I went for a run on Saturday AM and when we returned we had a message from the pediatrician. She called on Saturday because she was so concerned about the level/severity of peanut allergy that Wesley had that she didn't want to wait until Monday. She told us that Wesley has a severe allergy to peanuts and a likely allergy although less severe, to tree nuts. She advised us to get in to see her asap to get set up with an epi-pen. We had an appointment today with her and learned just how lucky we were with the episode in Costa Rica. I don't know what I was thinking to take peanut butter crackers, except that I really thought we had introduced it enough times. Our doctor explained that the reactions get progressively worse with each exposure. It scared us for sure, but now we know how to avoid it. Chris and I just went through our pantry getting rid of the more obvious peanut items, peanut butter cookie mix, Girl Scout tagalongs, belgium waffle mix, gigantic tin of peanuts (one of my clients is "Birdsong Peanuts" so my Christmas gift is going back to the office!), etc. As you can see it is mostly "sweets" which we could stand to get rid of however, the less obvious are the granola bars that Chris and eat almost daily in our lunches. Hind sight is truly 20/20 or better...give your child cheese ritz bits crackers when flying to a second world country--not peanut butter!
We have rearranged the pantry, ditched a lot of items and done a bit of research. We have to take this very seriously and while we are nervous, we understand that parents and children live with this pretty easily. Just wanted all of you to know...the more people we arm with this information, the less likely he is to come in contact with a peanut. Looking back, we were naive and frankly-stupid, but were lucky to have had a mild reaction on the plane. We don't want to push our luck!
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