A Recipe For Disaster (The Best and Worst Peanut Butter Recipe of All Time)

Ok, so a few days ago I found a great recipe for peanut butter chocolate bars. With a combination like peanut butter and chocolate you can hardly go wrong. The base was like a gigantic peanut butter cookie. Add a thin layer of peanut butter, then chocolate frosting on top. Yum.  Double yum.  Here's the link if you want to try:

http://jamiecooksitup.net/2012/09/lunch-lady-peanut-butter-oatmeal-chocolate-bars-4/

My kids have never tried any peanut or nut products. At least one of my brothers is allergic to peanuts and his kids have food allergies too. Another brother had to have an epi pen with him because of his severe reaction to bee stings. I had pretty major allergies as a kid (though not to peanuts) and got an allergy shot every week for 3 years. Plus I have asthma and it runs in both my family and Tero's. I didn't want to risk an allergic reaction that I knew could be possible. I have also read that it's best to wait until your child is at least 3 years old before giving them peanuts if allergies run in the family, so I followed this advice since I was a bit nervous about it anyway.

Since Matias doesn't seem to have any food allergies at this point (or the girls either for that matter...we eat everything!), Tero and I decided that giving Matias just one bite of my yummy peanut butter cookies would be a good way to test if he's allergic or not. I told Matias that, since this was the first taste of a new food, he should let me know if he feels funny in any way after eating it.

About 2 minutes after eating the bite he told me that his tongue was itchy. Then his nose was suddenly really runny and he had a few red spots around his mouth.  Within 10-15 minutes he got a really bad cough. He was coughing constantly. He also sounded wheezy (a sound I know well since I had asthma as a kid).  A few minutes into the coughing and he said his stomach hurt, then he got such a huge coughing attack that he vomited all over the floor. I decided to give him some of Olivia's old asthma medicine because I wasn't sure what else to do. After that, the breathing sounded a bit better for about an hour.  It was about 8 p.m. at this point.  Matias was resting in my lap on the couch, then went to the bathroom. When he came back he said, 'Look at my eye, mommy.' One of his eyes was totally swollen shut. He was starting to get little hives all over his body that looked like mosquito bites. Tero called the nurse hotline and asked what we should do. They asked him if Matias had hives on his neck and Tero answered that yes, they are everywhere....especially upper body at this point. The hives grew rapidly in size and started turning quite red. Matias was itching like crazy. The nurse told him to hang up immediately and call 112 (that's 911 for you American folks).

The ambulance came in about 5 minutes and 3 EMTs came into our living room. You could see the look of pity on their faces when they saw Matias and his swollen little body. Both of his eyes were almost swollen shut now and everything was puffy and bright red, even his ears and nose. They started taking his temperature, blood pressure, checking his throat and ears,etc., etc. and were asking Tero and I some questions.  I suddenly got choked up and had to excuse myself to the kitchen for a few seconds.  I didn't want Matias to see me cry.  I think it was a combination of the whole situation being a bit shocking and scary, plus the memories of the last time I saw EMTs rushing around (when I was about ready to give birth to the girls), and the fact that Matias was as calm as could be and doing everything these strange people in red suits were asking him to do. I was so proud of him- my brave little boy!  I hope I can learn to bit a bit tougher, because I really don't want to cry in front of my kids in these situations when they are suffering.  (If anyone knows how to do that, please let me know! :)

Although they reassured us that Matias was stable, the rash was getting worse all the time and they said we have to come to the hospital by ambulance. I put some clothes on Matias, grabbed my purse, and off we went. Something smelled really bad in the ambulance and we discovered that Matias had stepped in a big pile of dog poop. His shoe was covered. One of the EMTs wiped it off as best as she could, but when Matias said, 'We stink to high heaven,' he was just about right. :)  That was definitely not a nice bonus to the long evening ahead. 
  



Welcome to Jorvi- unfortunately a very familiar place to us
 

When we got to the hospital, Matias got to see the doctor almost immediately. He got a shot of adrenaline and also some cortisone. We were told that we needed to wait at least 6 hours to make sure the food got out of his system. The reaction can get better, but then get worse again as long as the food is in the system.  It was about 11 p.m. by this point and we were told that there were no beds available....we would have to just sit in a chair in the waiting room (which was completely full of coughing kids and crying babies). Thankfully Matias was happy to play there and he seemed to be feeling a bit better. We were STARVING though, and the receptionist told us there was no place to get food.  Thankfully a nice nurse brought us to a side room and gave Matias a few cookies and a juice box.
 

Matias feeling better and looking less swollen after his first adrenaline shot

Around 1 p.m. there was finally one bed open in one of the ER side rooms, so Matias and I laid down together and tried to rest. Matias fell right asleep, but I was too wound up to sleep. Plus, there were 2 other beds in the room so the lights were on and there were parents talking, kids coughing, and nurses coming and going to do blood tests, give breathing treatments, etc. for those other kids. At 2 p.m. a doctor came to wake Matias up check his skin. The eye swelling had gone down a bit, but he was still very hot and red all over. His body was literally one big, puffy hive. He got another adrenaline shot (this didn't go down too well with Matias after being woken up with only one hour of sleep) and then the doctors tried to put an iv. They were searching everywhere for the vein in his hand, and Matias was SCREAMING. He had one inch of needle in his hand being moved all around and it really hurt. The doctors were unsuccessful, so they tried his other hand. Also unsuccessful. Hearing Matias in pain and being exhausted myself was not a good combination and I had a really tough time holding back the tears.

Now it was 3 p.m. and they told us we would need to stay until the doctor's rounds in the morning. Unfortunately they didn't have any beds left in any of the wards, so they couldn't check us into our own room. The wait for the ambulance would be 2 hours to take us to Lastenklinikka, where they would have a bed for us. We decided it wasn't worth the hassle of transferring for only a few hours, so we just stayed in the ER in our tiny bed with the coughing kids next to us. Thankfully they went home about 4.30, so we got to sleep a bit after that. A nurse came to wake us up at 6.00 and 7.00 to check the rash, then at 7.30 they said we could go home. Phew! One very nice nurse gave Matias some stickers and chocolate and told him what a brave boy he was. He was really brave!  Even braver than his emotional mommy, I think. :) 

When we got home I asked him to tell Tero what the best thing about the hospital was.  I thought he would definitely say the ambulance ride or the taxi ride home.  His answer was: 'the chocolate.'  The worst thing: 'the peanut butter.'  I found that really sweet, because I think he totally understood why he had to go to the hospital.  I just feel so bad for giving him a bite of that cookie!  Matias definitely knows that he needs to say 'no' when somebody offers him anything with the word peanut in it! 

We are back to normal now, besides Matias still being a bit tired and having some purple marks remaining from where the worst of the rash had been (stomach and upper thighs).  He will now have to get allergy tests at the allergy and asthma hospital and we need to have an epi pen with us in case this happens again. Hopefully it won't! At least I know that I won't be offering him any sort of nut products for a VERY long time....if ever. Hopefully he won't be so severely allergic to other things as well.

So that was our little peanut story. It seems that excitement and drama are never lacking in our little family. :)