It was a typical day with our little 23-month-old son, Jack. It started with my husband and me rolling over in bed to see which one of us wanted to respond to our early morning call. There is no need for an alarm clock because our toddler's lungs are better than any high tech machine out there. We could hear Jack's screeching voice from the upstairs of our home. My husband responds first and brings Jack down for breakfast.

After my husband leaves for work I get Jack and his baby sister, Brooke, ready for the day. We run a few errands and then get home by noon for Jack's nap. Jack has been healing from an ear infection so I make sure that he is resting well. It's what happened within the next three hours that changed everything.

After Jack woke up we had a non exciting lunch of corn and hot dogs and then we played. Thomas the train engine got a lot of wear on this day. If you were in our household you would hear “choo choo” over and over and over again. Baby Brooke just sat in her bouncy seat happy to hear Jack's version of how Thomas and his friends made it around the Island of Sodor that day.

After dinner I gave Jack a little snack. He gobbled down his cheese and crackers and was grabbing at my snack. I was eating a couple cashews. Since Jack was not allergic to peanuts, walnuts or pecans I thought I would give him a ¼ of a taste of a cashew. He chewed it and ran back off to play trains. It was a treat for Jack on that night. I filled up our hot-tub and let him play in it with some of his Christmas toys. He had taken his medicine (penicillin) to help his ear infection, and then it was bath time.

When I took him out I noticed a couple of spots on his legs but thought it must be from something rubbing on his skin. Thirty minutes later I noticed two red marks between his nose and mouth and he started rubbing his nose a lot.

When my husband arrived home from work I told him that Jack was acting a little tired so we might have an early night. Fifteen minutes later Jack's eyes started to swell and he got really fussy. We gave Jack Benadryl and called the doctor. The answering service picked up because it was after hours. Jack started to turn in circles and was screaming.

“Now what?” I screamed. I was in panic mode. My little boy, the love of our lives, was in grave danger and I could not fix it. Quickly, like a tornado running through our house, we got our family ready and headed to the nearest emergency room. We wanted to take him to the best Children's Hospital in town, but we didn't feel like there was time. And we were right.

Jack was throwing up in the car and passing out. I kept him awake in his car seat by letting him watch Thomas on the DVD player and talking about choo choo trains. By the time we got to the ER and got off his footy pajamas Jacks body was covered in welts. His body was red and swollen. His ears were the size of his feet and he was screaming. He was having an allergic reaction to what we believed was what he ate that day (cashews) or his medicine for his ear infection. We helped the doctor and nurses hold him down so they could put an IV in. They gave him more Benadryl and steroids. It took eight hours before the redness and welts went down. It was the most frightening thing to watch our little joyful son in so much pain. The ER Doctor told us he had never seen that horrible of an allergic reaction before. Jack went home with a prescription for steroids and allergy medicine, and a diagnosis of a cashew allergy. He is possibly also allergic to penicillin.