Daily Archives: May 1, 2004

Yesterday, we discovered the hard way that Iris apparently has a peanut allergy. The timing was great, too, because this happened during Jon and Kate’s baby shower which was held at the office.

We were finishing off the meal with a nice slice of peanut butter pie and without thinking, we gave Iris two small bites of it using a spoon. Over the course of a few minutes, Kathryn began noticing red marks developing on Iris’ face. After nursing Iris, Kathryn returned to the conference room where we were having the shower and we both noticed flareups of red splotches and bumps, mostly around Iris’ eyes and ears. Her upper lip to one side was puffed up a small amount. So, we went to my office, called the pediatrician’s office, and they told us to visit the emergency room. We then told everyone at the shower what was happening and left. I couldn’t help thinking that we were stealing some attention away from Kate and Jon.

Before hauling ass to Community Hospital, we gave Iris a dose of Benadryl. While cursing the many red lights on 460, we noticed that she wasn’t getting any worse so we calmed down a bit. We were worried about her breathing — fortunately the reaction was not that bad. By the time we got to the hospital, Iris looked pretty good. The nurses checked her out, and the doctor wrote us a script “H2”, a histamine blocker (similar to the drug in Tagamet).

She had eaten some other food (a bit of cantaloupe and honeydew) in addition to the pie, but it seemed likely the peanuts in the pie caused the problem.

Today we took Iris to our pediatrician’s office and saw Dr. Cunkle, who wrote us a script for some epinephrine shots (“epi-pens”) for use in emergencies. He recommended against the skin test, where an assortment of allergens is applied to the skin and observed. His reasoning included the possibility of false negative results, and that Iris might have a bad reaction to the test. He was also hopeful about her growing out of this food sensitivity; he referenced a study that showed some number of children that grew out the peanut allergies they had earlier on in life. Here’s hoping!

Meanwhile, so begins the quest to avoid all things peanut.

I took Test 2 for the Real-time Systems course this morning. I think it went well. I stumbled a bit over the first 2 or 3 problems but then recovered towards the end of the 75 minutes given. I guess this is typical – the more pressure, the more results.

The class has been difficult but I’m glad I’m taking it — it’s forcing me to dust off old academic parts of my brain that I shut off years ago. Walking around the Virginia Western Community College campus (where I take the exams; the course itself is based in University of Massachusetts) made me nostalgic for my college days at Virginia Tech – but then I remembered the $40 that VT’s parking services pilfered from us when we parked in a completely empty parking lot for a mere hour to walk around campus with Iris.

(first attempt to back-date into blogger from old livejournal entry)

Yesterday, we discovered the hard way that Iris apparently has a peanut allergy. The timing was great, too, because this happened during Jon and Kate’s baby shower which was held at the office.

We were finishing off the meal with a nice slice of peanut butter pie and without thinking, we gave Iris two small bites of it using a spoon. Over the course of a few minutes, Kathryn began noticing red marks developing on Iris’ face. After nursing Iris, Kathryn returned to the conference room where we were having the shower and we both noticed flareups of red splotches and bumps, mostly around Iris’ eyes and ears. Her upper lip to one side was puffed up a small amount. So, we went to my office, called the pediatrician’s office, and they told us to visit the emergency room. We then told everyone at the shower what was happening and left. I couldn’t help thinking that we were stealing some attention away from Kate and Jon.

Before hauling ass to Community Hospital, we gave Iris a dose of Benadryl. While cursing the many red lights on 460, we noticed that she wasn’t getting any worse so we calmed down a bit. We were worried about her breathing — fortunately the reaction was not that bad. By the time we got to the hospital, Iris looked pretty good. The nurses checked her out, and the doctor wrote us a script “H2”, a histamine blocker (similar to the drug in Tagamet).

She had eaten some other food (a bit of cantaloupe and honeydew) in addition to the pie, but it seemed likely the peanuts in the pie caused the problem.

Today we took Iris to our pediatrician’s office and saw Dr. Cunkle, who wrote us a script for some epinephrine shots (“epi-pens”) for use in emergencies. He recommended against the skin test, where an assortment of allergens is applied to the skin and observed. His reasoning included the possibility of false negative results, and that Iris might have a bad reaction to the test. He was also hopeful about her growing out of this food sensitivity; he referenced a study that showed some number of children that grew out the peanut allergies they had earlier on in life. Here’s hoping!

Meanwhile, so begins the quest to avoid all things peanut.