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It is Easter morning and I am trying to decide whether I should take my son to the local Urgent Care facility or wait until tomorrow to get him to the doctor. The cause? Allergies.
We have both been up most of the night trying to combat the symptom of his latest attack. Until I had him, I was not even aware that people suffered from allergy “attacks” other than from food. His only food allergy is shellfish and at the prices of shellfish, this particular allergy is not a huge concern of mine. I do not have to check all food labels for shellfish as people with peanut or milk allergies do and he is old enough now to know what foods to avoid.
The scary part is the fire sneezing. Listening to your child sneeze non-stop for two or three minutes can scare the pants off of anyone. Add to this the fact that my son is, well a guy, and when he sneezes he produces enough liquid to water plants so anyone within radius of him is soon drenched. My attempts at training him to politely sneeze into his hand or a tissue have fallen of deaf ears and there are times when the sneezing comes on suddenly and tissues and such just aren’t handy. (He is currently dragging around a bath towel and calling it his handkerchief.) Thanks to years of dealing with this, he does wash his hands frequently and without motherly prompting.
We did have a respite from his allergy attacks for about 8 years but they have come back with a vengeance this year and they are no less scary than when he was 5. Don’t get me wrong – there are people going through a lot worse with their children than allergy attacks and I feel fortunate that I do not have to contend with that, but it is disturbing nonetheless to realize that he will likely suffer from this his entire life and will also develop other debilitating problems from it.
My son developed sleep apnea by the age of three (oh yes, children can get it too) and has been taken to the emergency room for pneumonia and strep throat. He has had his tonsils and adenoids removed. Nearly all of his teeth have fillings thanks to the buckets of sugar coated Tylenol, Benedryl, Advil, cold medicine, etc. he was given as a baby. (Ummm…yeah, the dentist informed me in a rather snarky tone that they have sugar-free medicine for children and I should have brushed his teeth/gums after giving him the medicine. Fuck him. After weeks of being awake all night and working all day, all I wanted was for my child to feel comfortable enough to sleep for a couple of hours. I wasn’t exactly examining every medicine label to see if it contained sugar and the prescription stuff doesn’t tell you if it has sugar. So, yeah…fuck him. He makes enough money from me filling my son’s teeth.) These are just some of the problems caused from my son’s allergies. I’ve not seen an x-ray of his lungs to know whether or not there is permanent damage.
My sister suffers from seasonal allergies (big time) and always has. Sadly, when we were growing up products such as Zyrtec, Claritin, Allegra did not exist. I don’t even remember Benedryl being available over the counter. Every spring my sister’s eyes would swell shut and she would end up sleeping most of the spring and early summer away feeling miserable. She is able to combat it a little better now, but her immune system is permanently damaged from the toll it has taken. A round of the flu will send me to bed for a couple of days. It will send her straight to the emergency room. Not too funny when you think about it, is it?
Allergy attacks can come on as quickly as asthma attacks and can be just as dangerous. I happen to know that two of our authors suffer from serious allergy problems and at least one of them gets an earful from me when he runs out of allergy medicine and forgets to refill it because he doesn’t think it is important. Knock it off, BGH.
So, Happy Easter everyone. Pass the tissues.
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