On March 5, 2010 I did what I do every morning - woke up, and made my boys their breakfast.  4 year old Cody wanted his favorite - peanut butter and banana sandwich.  16 month old Luke got his favorite too - Cheerios.  Luke decided that he wanted what his brother was having though, and started throwing a tantrum wanting a bite.  I had been thinking about letting him try peanut butter recently since his older brother was 15 months when he first tried it, and he was becoming more and more interested in everything that everyone else was eating.  I took half of Cody's sandwich and tore off a small piece.  Luke took two small bites - and pushed it away, wanting nothing to do with it.  I mentioned to my husband that the last time he did that he broke out in welts (he had reacted to a jar of baby food a month earlier, we still don't know what caused the reaction as he tested negative to everything in it - in fact, we had been at the allergist for it the day before).  A minute later, he vomited twice.  I carried him back to his room to change him, and when I laid him on the changing table, he was rubbing one eye.  When he stopped I could see that the eyelid was swollen, and the entire eye area was covered in welts.  I looked at his belly and there were 2 welts on it.  I yelled for my husband to get the Benadryl, but when I tried to give it to Luke he spit about half of it out.

I called his doctor's office, and they told me to give him 1/2 a tsp Benadryl and to watch for trouble breathing.  They also told me that the Benadryl would make him sleepy.  My husband left for work then, and I took Luke back to the living room to sit on the couch with me while I called my mom (who luckily was working from home that day).  About 20 minutes into our conversation Luke vomited twice again.  I was starting to worry, so I asked my mom to come over.  Once off the phone, I sat on the couch with him again, but this time he was acting strange.  He was very lethargic, kept falling asleep, but would thrash around like he was uncomfortable.  During all of this he was sneezing a lot, and his nose had become very congested, with mucus coming out when he sneezed.  I kept listening for trouble breathing, but never noticed anything other than the nose congestion.  Then I noticed that his coloring was becoming very pale.  His skin was completely white - and his lips were the same color as his skin.  I also noticed then that he had welts going from his chin down his neck.  I laid him down just as my mom was getting to the house, and unzipped his PJ's to find that his entire torso, from chin down, was covered in angry red hives.  He looked like he had a horrible sunburn.

I called the doctor's office again, and was told that I needed to call 911.  When the firemen got there they weren't able to get an oxygen reading on him, they said because the monitor wouldn't stay on his toe.  The ambulance came soon after, and were unable to get an oxygen reading either.  One EMT said that I could either have him taken to the ER, or to his doctor's office, saying "a doctor is a doctor."  The doctor's office didn't want him to come in, which at first irritated me, but now I am thankful that they didn't.  We rode to the ER in the ambulance, and Luke was rather alert during the ride.  He did get sleepy towards the end, and the EMT worked hard to keep him awake.

Once we got to the ER we were put in a room immediately.  They were able to get an oxygen reading using a different device.  It took almost an hour to get an IV into him, but once they did, he was given steroids through the IV.  He was also given Albuterol using a nebulizer.  Watching them work on him in the ER was the scariest experience of my life.  They had an oxygen tube in his nose because his oxygen levels were low (they didn't tell me at the time, but I later learned that his levels were in the 60's - 95-100 is normal).  He hated it, and would occasionally hold his breath.  One of the nurses would blow lightly into his face when he did that to make him start breathing, but it scared me every time.  Obviously he's too young to be able to tell me if he had any throat tightness or tingling, but he clawed at his throat several times, so I assume that something was going on. 

After several hours in the ER he was moved to a room in pediatrics where he was hooked up to the IV, oxygen and another monitor until the next morning.  Thankfully all of his vitals in pediatrics were normal - they did a great job in the ER of getting him to that point.  He spent 24 hours total in the hospital, and they sent us home with a 3 day prescription of oral steroids.

Before all of this we had no clue that he would have an allergy to peanuts.  Our oldest son was a huge fan of peanut butter.  I was as well.  Neither my husband nor I know of any relatives that have peanut, or any other severe food allergy.  The day we came home from the hospital we cleaned anything out of our kitchen that had the word "nut" in it.  We're avoiding all tree nuts as well, and anything that has any kind of possible cross contamination warning.  I've spent hours surfing the net looking for information and support in dealing with a severe allergy.  We didn't have an EpiPen when this happened, but now we carry a double pack everywhere that Luke goes.