Living with allergies is not fun. Off and on throughout their lives, my kids have had mild allergies to varying consumables. At one point, both of them had reactions to white rice. WTF? No one is allergic to white rice. Unless, apparently, you’ve sprouted from my womb.
Each child has only had one experience with antibiotics and were both prescribed penicillin. Even though their father is allergic, it’s such a common ingredient, I guess the doctor felt like rolling the dice.
It didn’t go well.
My son was the first to react. While we were on vacation. Many hours away. With no cell service. In a cavern. 15 stories below the earth’s surface.
The rash started out innocuous enough. He had a few spots on his torso that morning so I put some cream on it and headed out. By lunch, the spots covered his whole little body, including the palms of his hands and soles of his feet. I swear I even saw a spot or two in the white of his eye.
When we finally got to a clearing where, if I stood on one leg at a 45 degree angle to the ground on top of a picnic table while holding a pink monkey and reciting Sergeant Pepper backwards, I got cell reception, I was able to get in touch with an on-call doc.
“Sounds like he’s allergic to penicillin.”
Thank you, Captain Obvious. But now what?
“Stop giving him the medication.”
Is this really the level of intelligence they have to deal with when speaking to most parents? Listen, all I really want to know is how am I going to prevent my kid from going into anaphylactic shock, while I’m sleeping in the middle of the woods in God’s Country.
“Give him some Benadryl.”
A few months after that lovely experience, my daughter was prescribed her first dose of penicillin.
A good mother would have reminded the doctor how badly this went for her other child. A good mother would have suggested we try a different antibiotic. A good mother would not be staring at the rash all over the soles of her daughter’s feet 24 hours later. At least I still had the Benadryl.
I don’t really have a good excuse for continuing to feed her gluten when I had a sneaking suspicion she had an allergy to it. Like I said, it’s not fun to live with food allergies. And gluten? Really? I was a woman who bought wheat berries in bulk and ground my own flour. There was literally gluten in the air in my house.
The celiac diagnosis was a real blow. But, once again, we reacted (albeit, a little slowly) and stopped poisoning our kid. The things we do for love.
I shouldn’t have been surprised by the myriad of odd allergies that emerged in my children. My father-in-law has a few peculiar ones, too. I suspect my husband shares some of these food aversions, but he won’t even admit he’s allergic to penicillin. He doesn’t tell new doctors when they do his intake. It infuriates me.
“I had it one time as a kid. I swelled up and everyone got nervous. It was an overreaction.”
“You were having a textbook case of anaphylactic shock. You could have died.”
“Not really.”
“Umm, yes, really.”
So I also should not have been surprised when Brian came home from a walk one day, one eye swollen up like a prize-fighter.
“What the hell happened to you?”
“I’m not sure. My chest is a little tight.”
“Perhaps you should take a Benadryl.”
“Maybe I will.”
It took some detective work. He hadn’t really eaten any new foods. The only thing we hadn’t had in a while was strawberries. It had to be the strawberries.
“But I like strawberries.”
“Well, they hate you.”
You would assume that a food that left him with a puffy eye for several days would strongly deter Brian from ingesting said item again. I also assumed that. But you know the old adage, assuming makes an ass out of you and me.
Not even a month later, we’re in the kitchen with a friend who’s at the house to pick up her child after an afternoon at our home — her precious baby whom she entrusted into the care of me and my husband, two intelligent and thoughtful adults. She and I were discussing mom things while my husband stood there, trying to look interested and, at least slightly, engaged. In the middle of a sentence, I caught a glimpse of him out of the corner of my eye.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m eating.”
“That’s a strawberry.”
“I know.”
“You’re allergic to strawberries.”
“I really like strawberries.”
“That has no bearing on this conversation.”
After my friend took her child and left, likely to never again leave her in our care, I settled in with my other friend (red wine) and put my feet up. Then I heard some rustling coming from another area of the house. I am a mom and therefore, I knew who was doing the rustling and where the rustling was occurring. Sight unseen.
“What’s the matter, Brian?”
“Why do you ask?”
“You’re making a mess of the medicine cabinet.”
“Do we have any Benadryl?”
At least I was already drinking.
I stopped buying strawberries, even though the rest of us love them, because some people have as much self-control as a goat in a supermarket. Even when all the things will kill them.
The recipe that put Brian’s new allergy on the map was chocolate covered strawberries. Allrecipes.com has a super easy version that you can whip up in no time. Just don’t bring them to my house because my husband seems to have either a serious case of denial or a pretty substantial death wish.
Ingredients
16 ounces milk chocolate chips
2 tablespoons shortening (I would substitute coconut oil)
1 pound fresh strawberries with leaves
Directions
In a double boiler, melt the chocolate and shortening, stirring occasionally until smooth.
Insert toothpicks into the tops of the strawberries.
Holding them by the toothpicks, dip the strawberries into the chocolate mixture.
Turn the strawberries upside down and insert the toothpick into styrofoam for the chocolate to cool.
[divider]
Laurie Nigro, is the mother of two biological children and one husband. She also takes care of a menagerie of animals that leave throw-up around for her to step in in the middle of the night. Laurie’s passionate about frugal, natural living, which is a nice way of saying she’s a kombucha-brewing, incense-burning, foodie freak who tries really hard not to spend money on crap made by child laborers. You can hear her rant about her muse (aka husband) and other things that have no bearing on your life, in this space each Sunday.
Write to Laurie:
[contact-form-7 id=”27986″ title=”Write to Laurie”]
