Allergic daughter has had many brushes with death
By Joan Guenther
Special to The Toronto Star

Her teachers, assuming her parents were simply neurotic, agreed to let her stay away from the cooking lessons in order to alleviate our "anxiety." But the presence of peanuts on the second floor meant five-year old Faye, on the first floor, experienced severe swelling, skin rash and shortness of breath.

Over the next few years, Faye's teachers and the school community began to understand the seriousness of the problem.

One day a headline story in the newspaper reported that a teenage girl who had gone on an overnight camping trip had died of a peanut allergy because the campers had taken peanut butter on the trip. Her EpiPen had not provided enough of a window to get medical help in time.

A police officer was quoted in the paper describing the tragedy as an "accident."

This was reported the day after my young teen had left for camp. I wrote letters to every school board and trustee in the GTA, to newspapers and other media pointing out that it was not an accident. Everyone involved had known this child was allergic, yet included in their supplies was a food that was for her a terrible poison.

By Faye's nineteenth birthday, she'd had eight serious reactions to peanut products requiring hospitalization. Each episode was more serious than the last. And every episode involved "hidden" peanut product.

For example one night, just before we left the house for teacher-parent interviews, Faye nibbled a tiny piece of "Italian" bread. As we arrived at the school, she said that she didn't feel well and couldn't breathe easily. But we had an appointment and were sure she hadn't eaten anything dangerous. Half an hour later, Faye was at Sick Kids with an oxygen mask and an intravenous tube.

My husband had long ago decided that we would always follow up the source of any reaction. He spent three days investigating everything she might have eaten that would have caused her air passages to slam shut. The culprit turned out to be the bread, which included ground pine nuts as an ingredient. The company that provided the ground pine nuts cut them with ground peanuts.

I tended to cope by insisting that we not become overly preoccupied by Faye's allergy, that we not overprotect her. We encouraged her to be practical about the situation but not limited by it - until I was confronted by the reality of the level of danger.

Faye and I went out one evening to a local bakery/deli. She ate some vegetable soup; I had a salad. Just before we left to walk the ten-minute stroll home, Faye popped a bit of lettuce into her mouth. We weren't out of the restaurant three minutes when she told me something was wrong.

I knew the soup couldn't have had peanut product in it and if the dressing on the salad had included peanut oil, she had barely nibbled on a bit of a leaf. Anyway we weren't far from home; if she were reacting, we'd take her in the car to the hospital.

By the time we had crossed the road and headed up the street, Faye was collapsing. She had gone from being a healthy kid to being in terrible danger in less than five minutes. I ran up to a house and banged on the door. I begged the elderly couple who answered to let me call 911. I was terrified and horrified but tried to stay calm. I had forgotten to check that she'd brought her EpiPen to the restaurant.

Later Faye told me that she had believed she was going to die, that she had started to slip into unconsciousness but was able, by listening to me calling her name, to hang on. I was watching her be wounded from inside. It was as if someone invisible were beating her up.

Five hours later we left the hospital and she was herself again.

This past year Faye, now twenty, attended her first year of university at Dalhousie and flew home for Thanksgiving and high school graduation. She told me that, the officers at her residence had been sympathetic about her allergy, the arrangements they considered sufficient in the cafeteria had been to move the tub of peanut butter from the centre of the bread display to a table beside it.

She felt she hadn't been able to adequately convey her concerns so we composed a letter to the officials. "For me a peanut product reaction can be fatal. I could die," she wrote. We both burst into tears, hugged each other, and finished the letter. It was forthright and blunt. It produced a much more focused and caring response from the university.

I went to the airport with her for the return trip to Halifax. She had arranged for a peanut-free flight and I had suggested she pack a lunch to be sure. As I said goodbye and looked into her eyes I realized that Faye had decided not to eat anything while in the air, because there might not be enough time to get to a hospital.

Faye is a wonderful, outgoing young adult, happy and healthy. Most of the time we don't think about her allergy.

When we must, though, it's truly a matter of life and death.