An 11 Year Olds View of Life with a Severe Peanut Allergy

My son and I have severe Peanut and Tree Nut allergies, so I started to write a blog here in Australia about the problems we face on a day to day basis, as well as trying to educate people on the seriousness of these allergies.

I was sitting writing an article one night when Kane came up and asked if he could write something in his own words of what it was like to be an 11 year old with this Peanut Allergy, So I handed my computer over to him and this is what he wrote:

You might think that it is bad to have a Peanut Allergy, but after a year or two you get used to it.

At school some people might pay you out about it and you can feel a bit different and its upsets you when some kids bring Peanut Butter or Nutella sandwiches in for lunch because they have been told that it can make me very ill, but they still do it.

You miss out on a lot of foods and chocolate and sometimes it feels that I am always being told that I can’t eat things which makes me sad. If i’m unsure of something before I eat it I rub it on my lip and wait for 10 minutes because then it will only make my lips swell up and nothing else.

Every day I wake  up and hope I don’t have an anaphylactic shock.  If I do have an anaphylactic shock I tell myself the more you panic the worse it is, so I just try and stay cool. My mum is with me all the time and talks to me to try and keep me calm which helps. My lips and eyes swell up so much that it takes days for them to go down and it feels strange. It is also a pain having to take my EpiPen everywhere with me, they are so big I don’t know where to put it.

Well, I hope that has given you a brief insight to how an 11 year old feels about this allergy.  It upset me when I read “Kane hopes everyday he doesn’t have an anaphylactic shock” because as a mum who has this allergy I feel it is my fault, I have passed this onto him and as any parent would tell you, you don’t ever want your child to feel fear, but this is something that I can’t do anything about, other than be strong for him and not let his fears get in the way of him living his life to the full.