Halloween in July

I can't keep my child in a bubble.

Some days I wish I could just keep him at home and wrap myself around him, standing permanent guard against a poisonous world.  Unfortunately, I can't think of a more surefire method of guaranteeing a truly dangerous teenage rebellion against our food allergy safety net, while leaving my son incapable of managing his own medical condition as an adult.

So we take baby steps.  The Kid has gradually been integrated into the lunchroom at school.  He started out with an aide assigned to him at lunchtime, now he simply has a dedicated location which is washed before his arrival.

He knows not to eat another child's food.  The Kid is six years old now, and he absorbed that lesson while learning his very first words.  He hasn't had a reaction from anything he's eaten for two years, and he understands the bright line dividing his food from everyone else's.

Contact reactions, the stealth attacks of the food allergen, are a more insidious problem.  During the past school year, I had three or four calls from the nurse, usually immediately after recess with its constant collisions into playground equipment and other children, "The Kid has broken out in hives on his hands/arms/face.  I washed the area and gave him Benadryl, would you like to come pick him up?"

Sometimes we are able to trace the source of the contact reaction.  On one occasion, a friend had eaten egg at lunchtime, but hadn't washed his hands before heading to the playground.  When we talked afterward, The Kid wailed, "But I didn't touch his lunch!"  He'd followed the rules, and just didn't understand why it had happened.

Another memorable reaction happened after my mom had eaten a meal with fake crab meat in it, then kissed my son's face and blew raspberries all over his neck.  Since then he makes a point of asking Nana if she's washed her hands and face when she comes over.  To her credit, she takes his question very seriously.

Short of locking The Kid up, "Constant vigilance!" is our only option, as Mad-Eye Moody would say.  It's still not enough.

Recently we were at the home of The Kid's best friend.  His mom is a good friend, a far better housekeeper than I am, and one of the few adults I trust with my child.  It's generally one of the safest places for him to play.  The boys were rummaging around in a box of Halloween costumes and dressed themselves up as Buzz Lightyear and Woody.  They were adorable.  The Kid had put on Woody's hat and vest, but did not have a shirt underneath it.

The costumes stayed on for maybe twenty minutes, then came off in favor of another game.  That's when we found the ugly blister like hives on The Kid's back.  I couldn't believe it:  a contact reaction, most likely from candy, on a Halloween costume nine months later.  I threw the Kid in the bathtub, dosed him up with Benadryl, and took him home.

In the unlikely event I've never mentioned it before on this blog, food allergies really suck.