Anaphylaxis...

During our holiday, we (Ok, it was mostly me) were concerned about eating out and safety for Benjamin with his egg and peanut allergies. One night we decided to eat at the Old Spaghetti Factory in Banff (kind of a tradition for Ernie & I). They were awesome. They bent over backwards trying to accomodate Benjamin's allergies. He did fine. However, come dessert Owen chose to eat the Spumoni ice cream. Before he was even finished, he started saying his throat hurt, started scratching, coughing, runny nose, face rash, and his voice went raspy!! Ernie RAN to the van to get Benadryl, while I sat with him - basically with my hand on Benjamin's Epi Pen. We gave him the Benadryl, paid the bill and proceeded to the hospital (I sat beside him with the Epi in my hand). By then the Benadryl was kicking in (the allergist thought he may also have been recovering on his own) and they observed him for a bit and we left. When we got home from holidays, I took him to the Pediatrician and got his own EpiPen Jr. I thought for sure he had an allergy to nuts or peanuts since the ice cream had a "may contain" warning (I called the restaurant after to get an ingredient list). Our allergist did some testing (oK, quite a bit, too many pokes for Owen's liking) and it came back that he is allergic to EGGS! My initial reaction was "Yippee", it's only eggs! I can do that!". Especially since we already avoid because of BEnjamin.

My concern is school. He will need to carry his Epi and I'm supposed to meet with the Divisional nurse, hopefully sooner than later in order to put an emergency plan in place. My other concern is that often people only think of peanut or nut allergies as severe. However, we were told based on Owen's reaction that it was anaphylactic and very serious...we should have used the EpiPen. I'm getting pretty stressed about school, but was reassured by the principal that a plan would be in place to keep Owen safe. Now if I could only get him to WANT to wear his EpiPen (I let him pick it out from www.KozyEpi.com - he chose the racecar one).

Here's hoping that I've wasted $200.00 on EpiPens for the year!! Praying that they will NOT be needed...at home, at school or anywhere else.