Getting ready for school

It might seem a bit odd, but I’m already beginning to think about September, when William will enter Kindergarten.  There are a million questions and concerns racing through my mind, and I’m feeling a bit discombobulated, trying to figure out which of these should take priority. 

Unlike other provinces (Ontario and British Columbia), Saskatchewan doesn’t have  policy or set of regulations covering anaphylactic children in school settings.  Prairie Spirit School District does have guidelines for administering an EpiPen (or other necessary medication) to students, and has guidelines for dealing with anaphylactic children in the school (see section JFL).  That being said, we’re not dealing with an allergy that most people are familiar with.  The school is peanut- and scent-free (which I’m not going to get into, here), but it’s inconceivable, because of the ubiquity of sulphites, for this to be an option for William. 

I’ve already had a preliminary discussion with his classroom teacher, and will schedule a meeting with her and the principal for later this spring.  In the meantime, the dearth of readily-available (and understandable, which is a whole different issue) information on sulphites and sulphite-sensitivity is presenting a bit of a problem.  Sounds like a fact sheet might be in order. 

There's nothing as scary as grocery shopping

Well, not really, but grocery shopping has certainly changed for us. I used to waltz into the grocery store several times a week, decide on a whim what I wanted to make, quickly grab the ingredients, and be out the door.

Now grocery shopping at one of the major grocery chains is a bit like planning an expedition to a foreign country. Every item is scrutinized. Is it safe? If there's any doubt, it gets left behind. The risk is just too great.

I stand in each aisle for several minutes, reading fine print, comparing products, and often not buying anything. People must think me a bit batty. Labels are my friend, and my arch-nemesis. Does the product comply with the new labelling laws? Was it produced before these went into effect?

Even in the produce aisles, selecting things takes time. After a recent reaction where William had hives and eczema from one of his apples that'd *just* touched one of his dad's, I'm not willing to risk cross-contamination. So unless it's organic and bagged, I'm not buying produce from the major grocery chains.

Thank goodness, however, for the few local health/organic grocers in Saskatoon. I'm a bit more confident buying produce from them (although we just won't talk about the price of organic produce ... it's worth William's safety, and it's not like we can't afford it). Even so, I'm still an unapologetic label reader, but am learning that so long as it's certified organic in Canada, it can't contain sulphites (unless it's wine). Too, we're beginning to find organic brands and items that we like, so the kids know which granola bars, for example, they can pick from.

Many things, however, I've stopped buying completely. The days of buying baked goods in the grocery store are a thing of the past because William's had a reaction to sulphites in molasses. I've managed to find a brand of unsulphited molasses that works for us and doesn't have an huge difference in taste--it's Wholesome Sweeteners Organic Molasses. There's been a lot of experimenting with multigrain bread recipes over the last couple of weeks, and I think I've finally found one that's easy, that doesn't use molasses, and that (most importantly) we all like.

We're slowly adjusting to this new way of doing things, but weekends like this--Canadian Thanksgiving--I look somewhat wistfully at the major grocery chains, where I used to be able to get everything in one fell swoop. This morning, it'll be three or four stops (depending on what's in stock where) to get everything to make Thanksgiving supper ... but the fact that I'll be able to come very close to what we used to make (without even thinking) will be more than worth it.

Tracking the cause

So, what caused William’s reaction?

William had a grilled cheese sandwich on multigrain bread, a few French fries, and some packaged, ready-to-eat grapes for lunch the day that he had his first serious reaction. Of these things, the only one that he hadn’t had before at that particular restaurant was the grapes, so that was where I suspected the problem lay.

The doctor whom we saw the day of the reaction said that his reaction indicated a food allergy and that, considering what he’d eaten, she strongly suspected a food preservative was the culprit.

The following morning I phoned the restaurant and talked to the manager. He was able to tell me who distributed the grapes and gave me that company’s contact information.

When I phoned the distributor, I discovered that the grapes were washed with potable tap water, then packaged. When I pushed a bit further, saying that I’d narrowed the source of the reaction down to the grapes, the representative with whom I spoke said, after a bit of thought, that all grapes were sprayed with sulphur dioxide prior to packaging and distribution.

A brief Internet search revealed that sulphites are one of the nine most common causes of serious food reactions in Canada. I was fairly certain, thus, that sulphur dioxide was the culprit, especially considering several cases of gastrointestinal distress that William had experienced earlier that month.

At the moment, William has only had one serious and three mild allergic reactions to food since the initial serious one. All have been to foods containing sulphites, particularly sulphur dioxide. We have an appointment to see a paediatric allergy specialist November 8, 2012, so we'll see whether we get a definitive diagnosis at that time. In the meantime, we're avoiding all sources of sulphites in an attempt to prevent further reactions.

First reaction

"This can't be happening," was the first thing that ran through my mind that afternoon.

We'd been out for lunch after going to the Vancouver Aquarium, when William said he had to go to the bathroom for the second time since starting lunch. He barely made it to the bathroom, where he had a serious case of diarrhoea. When I went to help him with his pants, I noticed that he had a huge scarlet splotch across his lower back. A closer inspection revealed more splotches and a growing number of hives.

Worried, I took William back to the table, where Grampa and William's older brother were still eating. I told them I suspected William was having a serious allergic reaction, and left them to quickly finish up and pay.

Once out at the truck, I dug out some Claritin (all that I had on hand) and gave him a dose of that. In the brief period of time between leaving the bathroom and giving him the antihistamine, he had more hives, and his face and neck had begun to swell.

His symptoms got worse--more diarrhoea, more hives, facial and neck swelling, tongue numbness--on the way to the medical clinic. We left the clinic with a prescription, clutched in my hand, for an Epipen Jr, in case of further anaphylactic reaction.

We lucked out with this first reaction, as the facial/neck swelling and tongue numbness had begun to subside by the time we saw the doctor. William had to have Benadryl every six hours for two days, but we didn't have to use the Epipen Jr.