Something Good

My biggest dread is G having an allergic reaction.  All sorts of bad scenarios run through my head.  None of them good.  When I think too much about what could happen, my reality does a little slip to the side and my heart thuds in my chest.  But what if reality really wasn’t all bad.  Can something positive come out of such a dreadful situation?  I think so.  I’ll tell you what happened.

It was Saturday lunchtime and G was eating leftovers from a restaurant he had been at the night before.  After eating some he started sneezing and his nose started running.  He said “I think something’s wrong”.  We asked him if he thought he was having a reaction and he said he wasn’t sure.

The last time G had a reaction, he was a preschooler and in the hospital.  They had given him the wrong food on his food tray.  His first symptoms were a very runny nose.  He was too young to now remember this event, but his dad and I remember it very clearly.

So on Saturday when his nose started to run for no reason and he said his throat was beginning to itch we knew the signs were all there that he was having a reaction to the food.

I read very recently a discussion on the AllergicLiving web site about the importance of not waiting to give an Epipen or other epinephrine injection.  The progression of a reaction is so unpredictable that a person can seem fine one minute and be going into shock the next.  There are too many tragedies that may have been prevented with quicker use of an Epipen.  Antihistamines like Benedryl are good but they are not a substitute for epinephrine.

All this was swimming around in my head as G said he was feeling weird.  I told him that I thought he should have his Epipen and he agreed without hesitation.  I asked him if he would like to do it himself or if he would like me to do it.  He asked that I do it.  I sat him down in a chair, he was very scared, not knowing what to expect from the injection.

The fear of injecting or using the Epipen can cause people to be reluctant to use it.  If you’ve never experienced the injection there is a huge fear of the unknown.  How much will it hurt?  The needle is huge! It must be excruciating.

With G sitting in the chair I put the Epipen against his thigh and gave it a firm shove (no I didn’t take a swinging stab like most people think!) and G’s reaction was “Oh”.  He was totally surprised that it didn’t really hurt.  He said it was like someone giving you a friendly shove in the arm.

So what happened next?  G’s symptoms cleared very quickly.  We went to the hospital so he could be monitored for a while.  He hated the affect of the epinephrine which made him fidgety and as he said “wanting to run but not being able to figure out how”!  The bad side effect is that when he came down from the adrenaline rush he started to feel the spot on his thigh where I had injected him.  That’s when it started to hurt a bit like a bruise.  As he would tell you, it was totally worth it!

Obviously the best part of this story is the outcome, but here’s where more good comes in, I don’t just mean G’s reversal of symptoms. The ‘something positive’ I mentioned before, coming from what happened is more than that.  G is no longer scared of using an Epipen.  He can now recognize his allergic reaction symptoms and he knows that hesitating is a waste of valuable time.  First hand experience of using an Epipen is not a lesson plan I would ever recommend if you don’t actually need to use it, but for G the experience was a lesson he will never forget and will probably save his life in the future.

 

Back to School Shopping

School Supplies

Labour Day weekend is spent labouring over back to school preparations.  The first step is rummaging through the old back pack that was dumped on the floor at the end of June and has been stepped on and kicked around, but not opened since.  It’s with trepidation that I stick my hand in to the bottom of G’s cavernous backpack.  I hope to find pencils or pens to reuse but usually I find unwrapped sticky candies or petrified carrot sticks.

Once the bag is sorted, step two involves searching the art cupboard for any and all items that can be called school supplies in the futile attempt to avoid a trip to Staples.  Leaving school supplies shopping until Labour Day is ridiculous but I do it every year.  Staples is crowded and picked over, Walmart is worse… way worse.   As I sit writing this, I’m avoiding this inevitable shopping trip that the boys love and I, well, don’t.

The back to school shopping I never avoid is the one to the drugstore.  Back to school purchases for us don’t just include erasers and duo tangs, we always buy a new supply of Epipens.  Yes plural, we buy more than one at a time.  The shelf life of the epinephrine is about a year, 18 months if you’re lucky (expiry date is clearly marked).  Every September we buy a new supply.  First, the school requires one specifically for G to be left in the office.  Second, G gets a fresh one to carry with him.  This year he’ll get a new Alleject to replace the one he lost.  The third one I buy is for us to have at home.  If there are any we already have that have not expired, they get kept in strategic places (car, my Mum’s house, etc.).  The ones that have long expired we use for practice on unsuspecting oranges.

I find it really shocking how many parents do not supply an Epipen to their child’s school.  If a child is anaphylactic to an allergen, they need epinephrine immediately.  Waiting for an ambulance to arrive is not fast enough.  It also blows me away that kids do not carry their injectors with them.  It’s so easy and less cumbersome than ever before.  The length of time it takes to break open someone’s locker and search for an epipen may be the difference between … well you catch my drift.  I don’t want to get all ‘Debbie Downer’ but, really, what have you got to lose?

I know that at $125 each the auto-injectors aren’t cheap.  Get them with a prescription, which will help if you have a medical plan, ask your doctor or school principal if there are programs available to help with the cost.  Back to school shopping can be an expensive time: new princess backpack, set of smelly pens, sushi shaped erasers, but the most vital and valuable is life saving medicine.  All the binders, notebooks and calculators are useless if your child doesn’t have an Epipen when they need it.

 

How to Wear an Allerject

Allerject

Yay!  Got an Allerject for G.  It’s the new epinephrine auto-injector (mentioned before) produced in Canada by Sanofi.  Not sure if this product won any sort of design award, but it should.  Best redesign of a product … ever!  No, really, wouldn’t you rather carry around something in your trouser’s front pocket that looked like a small phone rather than a … banana.  I know I would and I’m not a teenaged boy.

A well promoted feature of the Allerject is that it talks to you helping you use it like the defibrillators that have been installed in rec. centers and other public buildings.  A voice gives you very clear prompts every step of the way.  This really is useful, especially for the first time user, but it was the unobtrusive shape of it that sold us.

How to wear the Allerject – limitless options for the progressive dresser.  I’m not using ‘Hipster’ to describe G’s style because the term is a bit limiting ; )

 

Allerject in pocketCasual : iPhone in one pocket, Allerject in the other.

 

Allerject in pocketPreppy : Spot the Allerject … nope, that’s the iPhone; it’s the other pocket.  These pants even have a small secondary pocket inside the main one.  People think it’s for small change, but it’s actually for the Allerject so everyone can discretely carry one.  No, really… betcha didn’t know JoeFresh was so allergy friendly!

 

Allerject in sleeveJames Dean, but a bit healthier.

 

Allerject fits in pocketOut for Dinner : Slips easily into a breast pocket.

Love, love love this new product.  Even if you don’t carry an auto-injector, spread the word and, you never know, a teenage boy may thank you.

 

 

How to carry an Epipen

Epipen

Is that an epipen in your pocket or are you just glad to see me.  Seriously, what fourteen year old kid wants to walk around with this in his pocket!?  Since he started kindergarten G has worn a specially designed belt from Medic Alert that carries his epipen.

Medic Alert Epibelt

It’s a great belt and he has never minded carrying it.  I highly recommend it and it’s worth the expense.  The problem is now he wants to wear belts for fashion not just function.  So how to carry the epipen?

I searched on line for epipen carriers and found many really nice ones – for women.  In other words small feminine purses.  G is a progressive dresser, but the only ‘purse’ he likes to carry is his sporran.  Actually his epipen fits nicely into his sporran but that’s not always a practical option.

I was so happy when I came across KozyEpi.  A perfect option for G’s needs.   He can clip it onto his belt loop and forget about it.  It comes in many colors and patterns and some styles fit asthma inhalers as well.

KozyEpi

The REAL solution would be to have an auto-injector that didn’t look like a… well  that wasn’t so bulky.  I’m sure many people have thought this, but now two brothers have taken the idea and run with it.  Their brilliant new product is the Allerject (Auvi-Q in the US).  Check it out through the link.  It’s fantastic.  Not only is this auto-injector smaller than an iPhone, but it TALKS to you!  It gives voice prompts to the user.   What a great idea.  Not everyone knows how to use an auto-injector.  For a limited time you can order a free trainer from the Allerject web site.

Allerject trainer

I’m going out to see if I can find an Allerject.  So easy to discreetly slip into a pocket.  No excuse for not having one at all times. No more need for fashion to take a backseat. No more need for bawdy Mae West quotes…. Which one will make G most happy?

My first time

Epipen photo

The first time, my first time, was unplanned, awkward and ended with a trip to the emergency room.  I realize most Epipen uses ARE unplanned, that’s the whole point of always having it with you, but I really didn’t see it coming and when it came to the moment, I didn’t feel ready and I didn’t think G would be so young when I had to use it.  It wasn’t how I imagined my first time to be.  I thought I would be calm and in control.  I knew what to do, I had seen the demo, I had tried the trainer, heck I OWN a trainer.  Should be straight forward when the time comes…

We were at a friend’s house for a play date, kids in the living room playing and mums in the kitchen sipping a much needed coffee.  My eldest son came in to the kitchen very concerned and said that G had spilled his ‘soy juice’.  Ummmm… G didn’t have any ‘soy juice’.  We raced into the living room and found G holding a sippy cup with milk in it.  Had he drunk any?  Apparently he had as his lips began to swell slightly and his nose began to run.  I was still so unsure.  I was looking at him and thinking ‘does he normally look like this? was he wheezing like this before? does he have a cold?’  Seems weird, but these thoughts were racing through my mind.  I had never actually used a real Epipen and I was so full of uncertainty.  I picked up G and held the Epipen.  I looked at my friend and said ‘I think I have to use this’.  She nodded ‘Ya me too’.  Having her confirmation was enough and I pushed the pen into G’s thigh.  He let out a huge scream, but immediately the medicine began to work. Now I was annoyed with myself for hesitating.  Why was I questioning whether or not to use it?  I vowed never to do THAT again.  When in doubt, use the Epipen!  Like I said, I had never done this before and I didn’t realize how long the needle is.  G was never a chubby baby and I wouldn’t be surprised if the point of the needle went all the way to his bone.  As I had been stabbing, my friend had called 911 and the hunky first responder firemen arrived very quickly.  A short trip via ambulance to the hospital for observation and all was back to normal by the end of the day.

G has no recollection of this day.  Good because being jabbed by your mother with a giant needle is probably not a pleasant childhood memory, but bad because the reality of his allergies is something he should not forget (especially as he enters the teenage invincibility stage!).  Me, I’ll never forget that day.  I’ve done it again since, but like with most things, I’ll never forget my first time.