Jontae was 14 months old when he first had a anaphylactic reaction. We were at an organic whole food cafe' with one of my girlfriends when I had to use the bathroom. My girlfriend watched Jontae who was happily sitting in his pram at the time. Whilst I was in the bathroom my girlfriend who doesn't have children gave Jontae approximately half a teaspoon of chocolate fudge that she was eating. We left the cafe after I returned from the bathroom and went for a walk. 

No more than two minutes after we had left the cafe Jontae began to try and force his hand down into his mouth (itching and swelling had started). I asked my girlfriend if she had given him anything to eat and she said, “Yes the fudge.” I wasn't sure why this was happening until I raced back to the cafe with Jontae and asked what was in it. They told me that there were cashew nuts in it. “Great,” I said. I had purposely not given Jontae any form of nuts up until this time because you always hear of other people's children having problems. By this time approximately four minutes after he ate it he was swelling around the mouth and coming out in hives. Lucky for us we were about 500 meters away from our children's hospital here in Perth, Western Australia. 

I knew that this was an emergency and that me loading him into the car and driving immediately to the hospital would be faster than calling an ambulance. So we rushed off to the hospital. Six minutes into the ordeal we pulled up into the emergency bay and he began vomiting profusely. I rushed him into triage and they took one look at Jontae and asked me what he had eaten. I told them cashew, and he was rushed straight through into the emergency room. Three doctors worked on him frantically stripping him down to his nappy and giving his swollen, red and hive covered little body oral antihistamine first to see if this would stop the reaction. 1 hour after receiving the oral antihistamine my little angel was almost totally normal like nothing had ever happened.

Jontae is now 3 and 3/4 years old and after specialist consultation we carry two EpiPens® and oral antihistamine everywhere. Boy was I lucky that for him the day that it all happened he probably only ingested about 1 or two cashews. Thank goodness it wasn't more or a peanut butter sandwich as he may have stopped breathing I have been told.

He is allergic to peanuts, all tree nuts, and border line allergic to soy.
But he is happy, healthy and full of life and we are always just really, really careful.

Kindest regards

Erica Hunt