First Aid Saves Lives

This is a C2 post

For full details please see my disclosure policy

What would you do if you found your child unconscious? If they tipped boiling water over themselves? If they started choking on a grape? If they had a severe allergic reaction and their throat started to close and they couldn’t breathe? If you found them floating in the pool?

Would you panic or go in to lioness mode?

Well I’m going to tell you, Lioness mode means squat if you don’t actually know basic first aid.

About a year ago, Tricky choked on some food. I don’t even remember what it was now, but we were all sitting having dinner and he went quiet, and we all know quiet and toddlers don’t mix. It usually means they’re up to something, but in this case it meant his windpipe was blocked.

I looked over and he was trying to heave up what was in his throat but he couldn’t. His eyes were wide in panic and there was saliva dribbling out his silent mouth. I grabbed him up to flip him over and smack him on the back and whatever it was, thankfully, popped out straight away. He coughed his little lungs up and cried buckets (whether from the shock or from having his mother yank his arm and thump his back, I’m not sure). In that moment, just like the first cry of a new born babe, it was the most brilliant sound I’d ever heard. The whole thing, from start to finish, would have been 5 seconds at the most.

My mind raced with quite a few expletives and what ifs but mostly it sung a happy tune of thanks for doing a first aid course. Then I berated myself because I still hadn't done the refresher I swore I'd do when Tricky was born.

I was lucky enough to be invited to a child resuscitation course at St John Ambulance the other day and finally got my refresher, albeit four years after I started thinking about doing it. Turning up to find out that my classmates were actual celebrities, Amy Zempilas, Jessica Bratitch and Elissa Griesser, meant I almost needed CPR myself. But I had thankfully taken along the buffer. And by buffer I mean Bobbin.

Not content to just be the cutest baby in the room (erm, she was the only baby in the room) Bobbin decided to really make a name for herself and proceeded to do a poo explosion all over my leg when we were only a few minutes in to the course. Oh did I mention that we were BEING FILMED FOR TELEVISION?! I excused myself and tried to clean us both up as much as I could and seriously considered just legging it and not going back because, well, poo stains don’t look good on camera. And as much as they say “breastfed babies don’t smell”, IT’S A LIE!

But I continued on with my poopants and the others should be applauded for being gracious, helpful and above all, not gagging. When it is your own kid it is tolerable, but someone else’s? Kudos, ladies, kudos.

I’m glad I did stay because the long awaited refresher was awesome. Our instructor, Brooke, was amazing and so passionate about teaching people these basic, life saving skills. It was great to learn that the number of compressions to breaths is now easier to remember, that you can’t hurt someone with the defibrillators available at shopping centres and that a shocked person doesn’t jump a metre off the bed like they do in the movies.

Here we are practicing compressions on child mannequins. For the record, we didn't purposely dress all matchy matchy.

L - R: Amy Zempilas, Jessica Bratitch, poopypants and Elissa Griesser

You can check out the segment below. Let's all be thankful it is not smellovision.


I also learned:

• The likelihood of a person making a full recovery improves if they receive first aid in the initial moments after the accident
• The average time it takes to get an ambulance to the scene is 10 minutes
• Irreversible brain damage can occur if the person goes more than 4 minutes without oxygen
• St John Ambulance have been running first aid courses in WA since 1892!

Brooke demonstrating how to use a defibrillator on a baby

We go to so much effort to keep our kids safe; vaccinations, power point guards, securing furniture to the walls, locking away poisons, having pool gates and teaching them how to cross the road safely. But accidents do happen and you can’t control how other people set up their houses. It makes sense that you’d learn the skills to act if something horrible should occur.

It was quite confronting to practice CPR on the child mannequins and even more so on the baby mannequin. Resusibaby and Bobbin were exactly the same size and doing the compressions and puffing air in to it's little lungs actually made me quite emotional. But now I know exactly how much air fills a babies lungs, not because I've read it, or heard it, but because I've practiced it.

Behind the scenes

St John Ambulance know that you don’t have a lot of time to spare so they have the Child Resuscitation Awareness course which is only 2 hours long and costs $49 per person. As the name suggests, it focuses on babies and children and covers things like choking, drowning, asthma and anaphylaxis.

Certificates for everyone

As it happens, I’ve got a $50 voucher to give away which you can use towards any course or even a first aid kit if you wish. You just have to tell me one reason you should become a Super Mum and learn (or have a refresher) for first aid.

Ahhh, nuts!! {plus giveaway}

Alternatively titled: I was RIGHT, bitches!!

Every time I write about Tricky's anaphylaxis to cashews I feel like the biggest bloody drama queen and I'm practically incapable of using my go-to coping method to deal with it: making a joke out of it. Because it's not funny. Not at all. Whilst it might have seemed overly dramatized to those of you with no experience with anaphylaxis, everything I wrote here about it was and remains true for allergy parents. The fear, the uncertainty, the endless anxiety. The constant vigilance leaves you weary and feeling like the biggest helicopter parent in the world the minute food is around.

If life occurred in the safe little bubble of your own home then you could avoid allergens quite easily, but we all need to go out. To the shops, day care, school, friends' houses, events, on holiday. The moment you leave your house (or someone visits) the chopper blades start spinning.

Tricky's allergy testing was inconclusive - he presented twice to emergency with 'atypical anaphylaxis' then had a negative skin prick test and positive RAST test. I had four emergency doctors and three immunologists tell me that if he had even minute traces of cashews that it would be life threatening.

The results didn't add up for me. I had a mama gut feeling that my little man was in fact not allergic but perhaps just sensitive to cashews (or something else entirely, like sulphur), and that both episodes had been severe, no warning asthma attacks just like the one he had a week later that required an ambulance. One immunologist agreed with me and said we could go straight to an oral challenge and not wait until he was five.

I figured knowing either way has to be better than this limbo. Two and half years of anxiety when it might all have been a mistake? No thanks. I wasn't at all nervous in the lead up to it, in fact I was quite giddy with excitement so sure was I that everything would be fine. But then when I woke up yesterday morning to the sad news that a 16 year old boy had died at a Sydney school after a cooking class used nuts in a cookie recipe, and it filled me with dread. Was I really about to take my kid to the hospital to possibly induce the same anaphylaxis based on a hunch? I was ready to hand myself in to authorities as the worst mother ever.

We headed to Princess Margaret Hospital and "checked in". It's just like checking in at a hotel except that you get tagged with bright red arm bands and there is sadly no swim up bar. Base line obs were taken and all seemed well so we moved on to a new skin prick test. As I watched, an angry red welt appeared on his arm and I thought it was all over. What the fuck!? Dude, your one previously negative test came back positive before we even started the challenge?! I don't even know how it is possible but the result put him firmly in to the allergic basket. Shit.

After a consult with the registrar and the fellow (jolly good fellow?) it was decided that we'd persevere to the next stage - rubbing a cashew on his gums and see what happened with epi pen at the ready. I didn't breathe for the next fifteen minutes but Tricky did. With ease. So we continued.

Each time he was given more and more cashew nut and observed. He absolutely loved them and would ask "more p'ease" without fail... then the alarm went off to signal his blood pressure was dropping. He was otherwise fine - smiling, playing with the iPad, telling me about all the cars in his game - and he quickly picked back up again. Again the word atypical was thrown around. I kinda like my kid to be typical.

Yet another consult with the big wigs and they gave another dose but watched him much more closely. After his second last dose two welts developed on his chin and he started to cough. If I'd been wearing the heart monitor, it would have been beeping like mad right about then. The doctors came, much more quickly this time, but his lungs sounded good and all his vital signs were fine. Atypical. Sigh.

His final dose was given and he drifted off to sleep safe in my arms for the mandatory two hour wait. While he slept they continued to monitor him. I could tell you now about how when he woke up he started coughing and scratching and everyone freaked out, but really, it's more of the same atypical stuff and this post is already way too long.

The final all clear won't be given until later today because you can have a delayed anaphylaxis reaction, but right now it is looking absolutely bloody brilliant. He has a mild allergy to cashews but it's something he is likely to outgrow with continued exposure. I have a RSI from constant jazz hands and feel like bursting in to tears I'm so happy.

Chicken cashew nut is now back on the menu and I can now actually buy foods without checking the packet to see if they are manufactured on the same lines as tree nuts. Hooray! Last week Kellogg's and Be Natural asked if I'd like to do a giveaway and were very understanding when I replied "Maybe. I'll let you know on Tuesday". To help me celebrate this momentous occasion they have come to the party and given me some awesome prizes to give away that contain NUTS and TRACES OF NUTS! HUZZAH! To top it off they're sending Tricky some too.

To enter click here to go to the Facebook App. If you're not on Facebook, and really, I can't blame you, you can enter below by commenting (just let me know it's an entry).

I've walked the shoes of an anaphylaxis parent for six months. A blink of an eye compared to what other 'ana' parents do. As awful as it was, I'm grateful for the perspective it has given me and particularly thankful for the support of this community and the outreach of certain bloggers (Bianca from Big Words, Grace from With Some Grace), and readers who helped me navigate this path and feel less alone.

For the foreseeable future I'll be dancing in the streets and screaming to anyone who will listen that my kid doesn't have anaphylaxis and that I still can't believe my hunch was right. 

Now, who wants some nuts?
This is not a sponsored post

Hope is the only thing more powerful than fear

My boy has been making his doctors scratch their heads of late. He's a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma... and I'm kinda excited because I HAVE A THEORY! You can call me Dr Glow.

A few months ago, we rushed Tricky to the hospital when he was struggling to breath and scratching at his body. They told us Tricks had an anaphylaxis reaction to something, more than likely cashew nuts (we'd just had chicken cashew nut).

He's been seeing the allergists at the hospital and has undergone a shed load of tests. OK so it's not really a shed load, it's only a few. But when you're using your full body weight to pin your screaming toddler down while someone pokes twelve needles in to him you tend to think all that effort was surely for more than a handful of bloody tests.

The results of these tests just aren't adding up and I have a theory. I've gone all CSI or Lorenzo's Oil or whatever and I'm hunting down this bastard that put my kid in hospital.

His skin prick test came back negative and it was declared a false negative. So a RAST test was ordered.

His RAST test ( radioallergosorbent test - big words!) came back with a high number for cashews (meaning anaphylaxis) and Allergist A told us to avoid not only the nut but traces of it and incidental contact. It meant having to ask my mothers group not to bring any "may contain" products in case any residue transferred from their children's hands to a toy, to Tricky to his mouth. Until he was old enough to know not to put anything in his mouth, or even touch his mouth without first washing his hands, this was how it was going to be. I was rather pissed off with the world, thinking he could end up in hospital just from learning how to share.

Then yesterday we got a very low RAST score. One that made Allergist B battle to try and not use the words "What the fuck?!".There are antibodies in his blood that react to cashew... but in theory, not enough for it to land him in hospital.

My brain has been going one million miles per hour since hearing this and has come up with an idea.

I'm wondering if maybe, just maybe, Tricky doesn't have a food allergy.

Writing those words makes my heart race and brings tears to my eyes. Because I could be right. And because I could be really wrong. I don't care that I could look like a dickhead, all I care about is my boy.

I think his first reaction, his "atypical anaphylaxis", might have been a serious asthma attack. He was given adrenaline in the emergency room - adrenaline reduces bronchial spasms and was the go-to treatment for asthma before Ventolin came on the scene. We went home after twelve hours and for the rest of the week he had a raspy cough and a minimal wheeze that we were told was to be expected after his throat swelling. We were back within the week with his first proper "asthma admission".

I think his second reaction, which was quite mild and was put down to a suspected trace exposure, was an asthma attack, too. It was just over a week after he'd had a major asthma attack - so major it required an ambulance. 

I think both attacks could have been brought on by something in the food, not necessarily cashews (a preservative? a colour?). I always need Ventolin after having anything with sulphur, including wine - which is why when I'm laughing after a few drinks I often end up having a coughing fit. I'm not allergic to it, I'm sensitive to it. I'm totally a sensitive gal, you see?

Image Credit

And I even think the itching could have been an asthma related eczema flare and swelling due to him scratching so much. Every time I have asthma my neck and my back itch so badly I feel the need to ask complete strangers to help me scratch my back. My mum and my cousins have the same thing.

I want to believe this so much. SO MUCH. Part of me thinks I'm stupid and clutching at straws. Could two lots of emergency doctors have got it wrong? Could two allergists have gotten it wrong? They were going by what I said - that he'd eaten and then a short time later, couldn't breathe, was itchy and puffy. It looks like anaphylaxis... but what if it's not?

I don't want to spend the next two to three years before the standard food challenge test freaking out over every single thing he puts in his mouth if I don't have to. Allergist B agrees and Tricky will be admitted to hospital soon for a challenge where they'll feed him small amounts of cashews and watch him, with adrenaline and oxygen at the ready. Then we'll know for sure.

We've only walked this allergy path for a few months now and it might seem melodramatic but it's been really hard. Trying to marry the two worlds of the laid back "he'll be right" mama and becoming a helicopter parent the minute that food is around has been tough. I don't know how to be that person and I feel like I'm failing miserably. 

I know it's much more likely that it's me that has it wrong than an emergency room full of doctors and allergy specialists... but I can hope. And as they say, hope is the only thing more powerful than fear.

The day I stabbed Orwell

The other day Tricky's EpiPen, that we were given at the hospital after his first anaphylaxis reaction, expired.

This is a brilliant thing for two reasons:

1 - If it expires it obviously means we didn't have to use it - HOORAY!

2 - I get to stab me an orange! BOOYAH!

I'm not scared of needles, I even had weekly injections for six months to desensitize myself to some allergens, but giving one to someone else is a little bit different to receiving them. There is nothing quite like stabbing fruit to get some pent up aggression out of the system practice, ya know? I decided to give him a name and a backstory because, well, it's me and I do stupid things like project feelings on to food.

I christened him Orwell the Orange. Orwell is allergic to Kiwi fruit and had been in the fruit bowl right next to one. If he'd had lips and eyes, they would have been swelling. I could have drawn them on but that would have been ridiculous, and only highly disturbed people would do that.

It became immediately obvious that the swelling was affecting Orwell's airway too, so I sprang in to action and grabbed the EpiPen, jammed it in his thigh and held it for the required 10 seconds.

That is one big bloody needle

I can only assume Orwell was so busy trying to not die that he didn't feel the giant needle going in, because he didn't even make a peep. Or a squelch. Or whatever noise it is that oranges make. Orwell is one tough cookie orange.

We can now all rest assured, safe in the knowledge that little Orwell is OK and that I'm confident to use a real EpiPen not just our training one.

Oh look, I'm disturbed after all

Are you needle phobic? Do you make oranges in to anthropomorphic test subjects?

The numbers game

In the last two and a half weeks I feel like all I've done is worry and count, count and worry.

Count the number of puffs, doses, hours, admissions and the number of times I've been close to losing the plot (I'd need to count higher than ten for that, so it's off the list).

Worry about whether I'm up to being this parent which is so far removed from my bordering on neglect "he'll be right" attitude.

One - the number of times we've needed an ambulance for Tricky

Two - the number of asthma attacks he's had

Three - the number of hospital admissions he's had

Four - the number of hours between ventolin when you're allowed home from hospital

Five - the number of times I've called the specialist only to get the answering machine

Six - the number of puffs of ventolin required every 20 minutes for three hours to stabilize him

Seven - the number of times he screams when woken up for medicine over night

Eight -the number of chips, dropped off to the hospital by a good friend, I can stuff in to my mouth when Tricky is finally asleep

Nine - the number of times per day I felt sorry for myself

Ten - the number of times per day I shook it off and thought how truly lucky we are

All in two and a half weeks. Ugh.

Tricky giving the thumbs up for feeling better!

Things I know about allergy testing and anaphylaxis

Don't panic, I'm not going to bore you with allergy crap all the time, I promise this won't become an allergy blog, just like it didn't become a Craniosynostosis blog or a breastfeeding blog or a food blog. It will remain a dribble shit blog bit of everything blog.

But, as a new 'allergy parent' I'm doing my bit for Food Allergy Awareness Week and linking up with Things I Know.

Tricky's recent trip to hospital with an anaphylaxis reaction to cashews got me thinking how little I really know about food allergies and testing, and how much I thought I knew after very poor education by the people in charge of his tests.

These are the Things I Know:

I know that allergy testing is bullshit if the child hasn't been exposed to the allergen previously.

I know that a negative result on an allergy test does not mean your child will not develop an allergy at some point.

I know that when the immunologist in charge of an entire allergy study tells you "No cashew or peanut allergy, so no need to worry" they mean "no need to worry right at this very moment, if your child eats a cashew in a year they may nearly die, sucks to be you".

I know that some medical professionals assume your knowledge base is the same as theirs and don't explain things as well as they should.

I know that if your child has a positive reaction to one nut, but has been eating other nuts without issue, you're meant to continue feeding it to them to reduce the likelihood of an allergy developing.

I know that going from a relaxed, free range parent with a "he'll be fine" attitude to a severe allergy parent is a very steep learning curve and will involve moments of "umm, did you check what's in that?" after you've fed it to your kid.

I know that when your child rubs his eyes and they look a teeny tiny bit puffy you will freak out and make a mental list of everything they've eaten then watch him like a hawk, EpiPen at the ready, only to realize he's actually just tired because it's bed time.

I know that when your partner doesn't take the bag with the Epi Pen in it when he goes out that you will get very, very angry, then realize you're both learning and it isn't second nature yet and feel bad that you got upset.

I know that the moment you become an allergy parent it consumes every waking hour while you research and try not to get overwhelmed by it all and become that boring as bat shit person who can only talk about her kid's damn allergy.

I know that I'm bored of me talking about allergies already.

What do you know?

Homemade Nut Free Muesli Bars

I've jumped on the nut free wagon since Tricky's anaphylaxis reaction. Whilst he can handle peanuts I wanted to try my hand at some nut free muesli bars for two reasons:

Firstly to see if they tasted as awful and bland as they looked... they did.

And secondly so I could give them to him to take to his little nut allergy parties where all the anaphylaxis kids get together and compare EpiPen carriers or some shit.

So, as always, I threw out the different recipes I'd seen and decided to take what I'd learned to create my own... and they're pretty damn tasty if I do say so myself. The Wonder Couple have declared them "better than the shop bought muesli bars". High praise indeed!

Nut Free Muesli Bars

Ingredients

• 120g of margarine
• 1/2 cup of honey
• 1/4 cup of firmly packed brown sugar
• 3 cups of oats
• 1 cup of crushed cornflakes 
• 1 1/2 cups of mixed dried fruit* - this is the important bit so make sure you have a variety, I use a combination of currants, sultanas, cranberries, blueberries, cherries, apricots and even a little peel. This is where the total nom factor comes from! If you just use sultanas it is BOR-ING!
• 1/4 cup sesame seeds

Method

• In a big bowl combine all your dry ingredients and the super awesome selection of dried fruit
• Combine margarine, honey and sugar in a saucepan and melt together, bring to the boil for 3-4 minutes stirring continuously - it will froth and thicken slightly
• Pour the contents of the saucepan in to the bowl and stir until the whole mix is wet and sticky
• Dump the mix in to a lined slice tray, push down as firmly as you can and bake at 180C for 15-20 minutes
• Remove from the oven and allow to cool (whack it in the fridge to speed it up) then cut to size - bars or squares, I ain't fussy

It is slightly crumbly so make sure you wait until it's completely firmed in the fridge before cutting - if you get impatient because it looks so amazing then you'll end up with crumbs everywhere. If it happens though, scrape them all together form little balls - the honey means they'll still stick together. Muesli balls FTW!

Happy baking!

*I go to the local bulk food store and get a little scoop of all the dried fruits I want so I don't have to pay for giant packets of dried fruit that will take forever to get eaten

The genetic trifecta

The Trickster and I don't look anything alike. When my blonde haired, blue eyed boy was born it appeared he must have actually been a clone of Map Guy and received no genetic material from me at all... this past week we've discovered that he shares more in common with me than we thought. Which means it's been a pretty shit week. 

It started on Tuesday (well the week didn't start on Tuesday, the shit did) in the form of Tricky having an anaphylaxis reaction to cashew nuts and needing a trip to the emergency room for adrenaline and a night in the observation ward.

It finished with a trip back to that same emergency room and a weekend stay on the ward, when Tricky couldn't breathe on Friday night.

Breaking my heart

He was a little bit sniffley through the day but it wasn't until night time when he really started to become unwell - he was clingy, pale, couldn't sleep, threw up some rather toxic looking green bile and struggled with his breathing. He was working so hard to breathe, with his little tummy sucking right in, that he couldn't do anything else and sat motionless in my arms as we entered the emergency room.

On arrival we again went straight through although this time he was triaged as a level two (emergency - could become life threatening), not a level one (life threatening) like it was on Tuesday... and in my unparalleled ability to clutch at straws I'm chalking that up as a win. I took my child to hospital before he died, yay me!

He needed nebulizers every twenty minutes for the first two hours, and since it takes fifteen minutes to have it, it meant he was off the drugs for only five minutes before needing more, and in those five minutes he was on oxygen or his saturation would plummet to the mid 70s. Scary, scary stuff.

I'm not sure if it was because of the toxic green vomit, which could have been a sign of an infection, or just because there was space, but we got our own isolation room which meant a private bathroom, enough room for a fold-a-bed, and a door to close and block out the cries of the rest of the poor sick kids on our ward.

New jimjams are a perquisite for hospital stays

He was the perfect patient. He let them poke and prod, he left the mask on his face and the pulseoximeter on his toe. Well, he did... until it was almost 9pm when he'd finally gone to sleep and his oxygen levels kept crashing. Putting the mask on him woke not only him but the entire bloody ward.

The nurses resorted to nasal prongs and bandaging his hands to stop him pulling them off. Thanks to crappy medical dramas, I always associate nasal prongs with people who are dying, so it's safe to say I went pretty emo around then.

I was sure nothing could perk me up until an awesome friend organized a delivery of snacks for us. It's amazing just how much a kind gesture can buoy your spirits, especially when that gesture involves chips and Coke. But even full sugar soft drink can't keep you happy when your little boy is laying in hospital.

I settled in to my bed, which almost collapsed every time I breathed, and tried to get a little bit of sleep because I knew it was going to be a long night... and I wasn't wrong.

Overnight, he needed medication every two hours, and every two hours he would scream and violently thrash around... so every two hours I would hold him down as he protested and sing to him through my tears as my heart shattered in to a thousand pieces.

Then, like magic, as soon as the sun rose and he had a breastfeed he was back to being a model patient. I suppose I can't blame him - I don't like to be woken up either.

Feeling much happier

Normally the powers that be don't give a diagnosis of asthma for a first attack... because there is no way of knowing if it will happen again. When he was discharged on Sunday, the doctors took one look at his Tuesday admission, his eczema and the fact that I was hospitalized a dozen times or so with asthma as a kid and chalked him up as asthmatic immediately.

Snuggles at home

So it turns out he did get some genes from me. The allergy, eczema and asthma genes - a rather shitty genetic trifecta.

What did your kids inherit from you that you wish they hadn't?

Of anaphylaxis, ignored instincts and guilt

As far as mistakes go, I've made a lot. But none quite as grave and life threatening as this one.

I'm standing in the kitchen cooking up my favourite dish, chicken and cashew nut. From nowhere I get this gnawing feeling in my stomach that I shouldn't give it to Tricky despite him having been declared "not allergic" to cashews at a previous allergy test*.

But I don't listen to that internal voice. I push down my gut instinct and, with a haughty (and completely judgmental) "I'm not one of those paranoid parents", carry on.

We sit down as a family to eat. I love these moments, the three of us together, talking about our day and reconnecting. Tricky eats one cashew nut and looks unsure of it's texture. We laugh at the funny face he pulls and watch him enthusiastically spoon mound after mound of rice in to his gob. After a pretty standard bedtime routine, I put Tricky to bed without any fuss.

An hour passes and he cries out so I go in to check on him. He is scratching at his knees and elbows furiously - now someone else might have seen that first sign and known straight away something was wrong, but I've lost count of the number of nights Tricky has woken crying and clawing at his eczema so I don't think anything of it.

Instead, I sit with him in the dark, singing and massaging a soothing salve in to his inflamed skin, just as I always do, then leave the room telling him to go back to sleep. He coughs once or twice then falls back to sleep.

A short while later he wakes again, comes out to me wanting cuddles. Because I am still in "get him back to sleep" mode I don't turn a light on... if I had, I would have seen his face was swelling up and his body breaking out in hives. So we cuddle in the dark on the couch and after a few more coughs and being so clingy I decide that he is probably coming down with a cold. 

He coughs more. And more.

Less than five minutes pass.

He starts wheezing.

And it all starts clicking in my head. The scratching, the crying, the coughing, the wheezing. This isn't the beginning of a cold, this is an allergic reaction.

We consider calling an ambulance but think that since the allergy test has shown he isn't meant to be allergic, that this must only be a mild reaction, I'll drive him myself. So I do, picking up my parents on the way for support.

I feel like an idiot, but I'm not too concerned. A quick trip to the hospital and a dose of antihistamines, I think.

On the way there, Tricky gets itchier and he scratches his skin off parts of his arms and neck. What was once a faint hiss of a wheeze becomes louder and louder, clearly audible from the front seat.

Fuck. This is so much worse than I thought.

Triage takes all of two minutes before we are whisked through to a bed with a "we'll get your details in a minute" rush, and straight on to a monitor that showed his oxygen saturation at 89% and his blood pressure very low. What the hell is happening? My little boy is shutting down.

What have I done?

I hold him down while they jab the biggest needle in the world in to his tiny thigh. His scream pierces my soul and I squeeze him even tighter, smothering him with kisses in the vain hope that they'll help. I am barely holding it together when I look up and see my Mum starting to cry. It tips me over the edge and tears spring from my eyes. But they're not sad tears. They're angry tears. Embarrassed tears. Guilty tears.

How could I be so stupid? Why did I ignore that gut instinct? For a moment I let my thoughts run wild. What if he didn't get itchy? He wouldn't have cried and come out for cuddles... his airway would have just closed. Silently, without us knowing. What if, what if, what if?

My blood runs cold.

We're moved to the observation ward to stay the night. I sing and pat Tricky in an attempt to get him to settle, but he is, quite literally, full of adrenaline and isn't having a bar of it.

It's not until much later, in the early hours of the morning when he finally dozes off. He's still attached to the monitor and it alarms every hour or so as his oxygen levels fluctuate. They tell me he's fine, that it's just his sleep cycle, but I cannot look away from it, this machine that goes ping.

I manage to get about an hour of sleep before Tricky decides it is time to start the day.

I'm ladled with information on anaphylaxis and the use of an EpiPen. I'm given brochures and a DVD that I watch on a portable player as Tricky drives toy cars up and down the railings, unaware of how serious the situation is. We're given our EpiPen that he'll have to have with him at all times, a referral to an immunologist and we're told to never have cashews in the house again and avoid anything that contains tree nuts.

They bring us each breakfast. I read the label. May contain traces of tree nuts. Fuck you, world.

Got any allergy advice for us? I could really use some.
*I was told yesterday that initial allergy tests on children who haven't been exposed to an allergen aren't worth the paper they're printed on. The body doesn't always react on the first exposure, as was the case with Tricky, so it was the second exposure that caused anaphylaxis.