A Plea for My Daughter

I've spent a lot of time thinking about what I'll say to the other parents on back-to-school night when my daughter enters first grade. That day is still months away, but I know I need to plan my words very carefully. I need to ask the other parents in the class to protect my daughter's life, and I know there is a good chance that some of them won't feel like participating.

In January my daughter was diagnosed with peanut and tree-nut allergies. Unlike most children diagnosed with severe food allergies, she had never exhibited a visible reaction to the food to which she's allergic. Her allergy was caught by chance, by an allergist who was supposed to be examining her for suspected asthma. Follow-up testing not only confirmed the allergies, but indicated that the peanut allergy is severe.

Over the course of a few days, our family's life changed. Lydia didn't object to not being able to eat nuts—she's never cared for them, and now I know why: they probably made her mouth or throat itch. It's the other adjustments, the ones we didn't expect, that are harder. The Chinese buffet restaurant where we like to take the kids for dinner? Off-limits, forevermore. Chinese food is often cooked in peanut oil, and the risk of cross-contamination at a buffet is uncontrollable. Ice-cream parlors, bakeries and doughnut shops are also forbidden. But the hardest thing so far has been watching a 5-year-old practice injecting her own thigh with epinephrine, the lifesaving medication she'll have to take, quickly, if she ever eats a trace of peanut by accident.

Lydia will never be able to go to a birthday party without bringing her own homemade cupcake. Every time she eats in a restaurant, she'll have to bring a card detailing her allergies and pray the chef takes her seriously. I don't want to think about when she's a teenager, too cool to even ask what's in food she's being offered. For now, she can't go over to a friend's house without the friend's mother's being fully versed in Lydia's emergency protocol. It's enough work keeping kids entertained and fed; staving off anaphylactic shock may be more than some moms are willing to sign on for.

But Lydia did all these now forbidden things before she was diagnosed. She ate cookies made on equipment shared with nuts. She went on playdates and ate whatever snack was offered her. She sat across the table from a brother whose hands were sticky with peanut butter. She never had a problem before; what's different now?

What's different is that now we know that there are antibodies lurking in her blood that will overreact if they come in contact with the smallest bit of nut. We're not being insanely cautious now; we were insanely lucky before. Peanut allergies are like mutual funds: past performance is no guarantee of future results. Lydia's last reaction to nuts may have been itchy lips. Her next could kill her.