I’m so excited to finally get this blog up and running! But, I’ve gotta be honest. This post has been emotionally exhausting to write. Yea, I’ve been coping and surviving with these food allergies for 9 years now, but it’s not often I have to relive the entire story or think of all the little details that lead us to that fateful day. I’ve certainly struggled, cried and walked away from the screen a few times. But you are the reason I kept coming back. I know that so many of you are in my shoes. So, I stuck through it…thank goodness for that glass of wine!

So, here goes…this is how we started our journey into this very confusing food allergy world.

Four months before our fateful day, we took Pig to the allergist because she had horrible eczema down the back of her legs. I have an anaphylactic allergy to shellfish, so we decided to have her seen to be safe.  She was diagnosed with an egg allergy via a skin test and we were told she would likely outgrow it, so don’t stress too much over it. Great! No biggie…we can certainly avoid egg.

Well, on a dreary April evening, Pig had been feeling awful. She slept sitting on me, while I slept sitting propped with pillows all night because she hadn’t been feeling well. She whimpered and cried all night. Unbeknownst to us, she was going into full blown anaphylactic shock. When daylight started breaking, and light started to fill our room… I looked down at my baby girl and she was unrecognizable! I smacked my husband on the chest and started screaming and yelling for my husband to call 911. (Anyone ever wake up like that?? No? Well, I’ll tell you… NO FUN AT ALL!)

I compose myself enough because she’s looking at me wondering what in the world is happening, and she starts crying. She starts crying! You know what this means, right? She’s alive! She’s breathing!

The next few minutes are a blur in my mind, but somehow I managed to dress myself before the ambulance arrived. Thankfully her Oxygen levels were normal, so they didn’t give her epinephrine right away. With all that I know now, they really should have! We make it to the hospital via ambulance, and they’re floored with how she looks, but again, oxygen is normal, so no epinephrine. Instead they treated her with Benadryl, and we had to stay for observation. We were at the hospital for about 6 hours and they gave her Benadryl twice, eventually sending us home with advice to see our pediatrician and an allergist. No medication prescribed, no epinephrine injectors, nothing! Smart huh!?!

We went straight to the allergist who agreed to run labs on her. After seeing her, he decided she needed a round of steroids, Benadryl for 7-10 days, and a prescription for epinephrine auto-injectors. (Finally, someone gives us injectors!) He advised us to avoid the top 8 allergens which are wheat, milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, soy, fish and shellfish.

We make it home after an exhausting day. Pig falls asleep on her favorite place…me…while breastfeeding. Papá warrior looks at me and asks what we will eat for dinner, and we just stare at each other.

What. Will. We. Eat. For. Dinner? Our kitchen was not safe, it had leftovers of all the “normal” stuff we always ate. Surfaces and pans hadn’t been scoured, utensils replaced, etc. But wait… safe from what exactly!?! The top 8 foods? But that stuff is in EVERYTHING!

How would we manage this? Baby steps, that’s how… haha, just kidding…there are NO baby steps in food allergies – you’re either all in or all out!

Since I was breastfeeding, I also had to avoid the offending food(s) to keep her safe. So, we did what any rational parent would do…cry, kick, then scream. I have no idea what we ate for dinner that night, but I’m sure it was something bland and boring, since we had no clue what we were doing.

Her results didn’t come in until 13 days later!! 13 very looong days!! Her RAST (aka blood tests for allergies) came back positive to all tree nuts, wheat, egg, and milk. Her IgE levels were also through the roof.

We were full of questions but zero answers. No support groups shared with us, no guidebooks, just a sheet to help us read labels, epi-pens in hand, and a pat on the back. Off we went … into a whole new world…

This, my dear friends, was how we were catapulted into a world with food allergies. I mean, yea, I’ve dealt with a shellfish allergy all my life, but that was easy enough to avoid. Plus, a lot of people can’t eat shellfish, so people understood. This was totally different. People didn’t understand that we could no longer have our Sunday pastelitos (flaky pastries) or Cuban bread dunked in cafe con leche (coffee with milk). We could no longer just go to a friend’s house without a worry. So many things changed. So many things that we didn’t understand, much less explain. But, we made it through, or shall I say that we are making it through. Each day is a challenge, each day brings a surprise, but all we can do is persevere!

Stick around! I have so much more to tell you, and I don’t want you to struggle through this alone. Make sure you subscribe below so that you’re the first to read my posts.