A Bully Almost Killed My Son

I kid you not, no sooner did I press "publish" on my last post about Ricky's nut allergy when the phone rang. It was the school secretary at Ricky's school telling me that Ricky took a bite of a classmate's peanut butter snack!!!!

Ricky's teacher followed the guidelines I left her and gave him a benadryl tablet immediately. They said his throat and mouth were burning and his stomach was bothering him. I woke up Teddy from his nap, and drove to school - of course hitting every red light, slow people, turned the wrong way, etc. They said he was breathing okay (so no need for the epipen at that point) and I told them to let him drink water to flush out the peanut butter.

When I arrived at the school office, there was Ricky sitting at a table. I put his coat on, and was telling everyone in the office that I was going to take him to the ER. My mom was meeting me at the school to grab Teddy. While mid-sentence, Ricky started vomiting - gallons - 4 times. His color changed and then I realized that my kid was REALLY IN TROUBLE. I thought I was watching him die.

In a nutshell, the secretary called 911 and they came. I rode in the ambulance with Ricky and asked him what happened. My son always asks if something has peanuts, nuts, or peanut butter in it before he eats it. He said that the Big Bully Boy - who sits at a different table in the class - walked up to him and said while holding out a peanut butter sandwich cracker, "Here Ricky, try this cracker. It has no peanuts or peanut butter in it." So my son took the cracker and took a bite.

Immediately, his throat and mouth were on fire and he started to feel like crap quickly. He told a classmate he had peanuts, and she told the teacher.

This Big Bully Boy is the same boy who had been bullying Ricky earlier this school year. Physically throwing him down at school and at sports, taunting, humiliation, etc. This kid almost killed my son.

The paramedic on the ambulance told me that his fire chief had a peanut allergy and he cooked a big barrel of stew for the firehouse and put 2 tablespoons of peanut oil in it - unaware of the chief's allergy. Well the chief took one bite and was in Intensive Care at the hospital for 4 days!!!

When we got to the hospital, there were many people in Ricky's room. The doctors all told me that since his teacher gave him a benadryl tablet immediately, it really saved his life. If minutes had gone by, his body would have followed the anaphylaxis route. That's how bad Ricky's allergy was.

Now I always knew that his allergy was bad, but I guess I thought it was moderate - probably denial. This was a HUGE wake up call. I'll have to write more later - there is so much to this story, and I was up from 1am to 5am this morning - I couldn't sleep with all my anger and frustration buzzing in my head. Mark and I met with the school principal yesterday and I'll write about that later. Just reviewing all this right now makes me want to lie down and sleep.