Things started out pretty well. We had a beautiful baby who was very healthy, not overly fussy (for an infant) and really had no issues that were alarming. There was the occasional eczema patch and the one incident with full body hives after using a new lotion (I rack my brain now to remember what I ate that day), but everything else was normal. I remember checking my daughter into the nursery at church for Mom to Mom and being surprised at the question, "Does your daughter have any allergies?" I happily answered, "No, but thank you for asking!" Then I felt sad for those who had a different answer. I saw an episode of Dateline, or one of those news shows, when I was in grad school 10 years earlier. The story was about a child who had died when the babysitter made a PB&J for one child, wiped off the knife and made a different sandwich for the allergic child. The residue from that knife was enough to cause an anaphylactic reaction in that child. He died. I never forgot that story and the horror and confusion I felt as I realized that food could kill.
Skip ahead with me to the day our idyllic existence was shattered. (If only we had realized and appreciated how spontaneous and fun our life had been!) We went out to dinner. We still did that back then. My daughter was about 13 months. I had not given her a ton of table food, but she had a widely varied baby food palate. We had pizza for dinner and tiramisu for dessert. My daughter ate her own food for dinner, but we decided that we would let her have a small taste of the cream from our dessert since she had had dairy before. She took a bite and refused another. Then she started rubbing her eye. We didn't really think anything of it at first. We were paying our bill when we noticed her eye looked funny and she had a couple hives on her face. I knew right away what was happening. I remember asking the people at the host stand if they had Benadryl as we rushed out. I'm not sure why I thought they would. We got in the car and headed toward the nearest hospital as I called the 24 hour emergency line for the pediatrician. They asked me about trouble breathing and if this had happened before. The hives were moving around her face and her right eye was pretty swollen, but thankfully nothing else was happening. When we got to the ER, they did an intake pretty quickly and took my daughter's BP and had us wait in the waiting room. The swelling was a little better, but those hives were still traveling. It was very bizarre. We got called into a room, and it was at least 45 minutes before we saw a doctor and we were given Benadryl. The hives cleared up very quickly after that. The doctor confirmed that it was most likely an allergic reaction and suggested we follow up with our pediatrician to try and figure out what my daughter reacted to. We were released shortly thereafter. It did not seem like the ER doctor was overly concerned.
The next day we followed up with the pediatrician. She told us that she was going to prescribe an EpiPen because "that was actually a pretty serious reaction." I remember being surprised by her saying that. The ER doctor was really not that concerned. It seemed like we just needed Benadryl to stop a reaction. She explained to me that reactions can be worse each time. We discussed what could have caused the reaction. She said that raw eggs are often in the cream of tiramisu. I had forgotten about that. She sent us to the lab for blood tests for egg, dairy and chocolate and called a couple days later with the results. Eggs. It didn't make sense. My daughter had eaten a few things with eggs in it, but she told me that some people with an egg allergy can eat things with eggs as a baked ingredient. We would need to avoid raw or undercooked eggs as well as straight up eggs. I was bummed about my daughter not getting to experience the joy of raw cookie dough (I know, I know, probably just as well) and was a little freaked out, but relatively ok. We were advised to avoid peanuts and tree nuts since there was an increased chance she could be allergic to them. I was thinking that our instructions were relatively simple, but I began to realize that raw and undercooked egg could be found in things like salad dressings and condiments. It occurred to me that I had to be careful when making eggs for my husband and myself. I was beginning to realize there was more to this than I thought.
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