Wyatt's Story
Wyatt was born on March 27th, 2007 and from the beginning, he was our "sick" child. Always had a snotty nose, always coughing and had terrible eczema. One night, when Wyatt was around 18 months old, he began having difficulty breathing. Several people in our family have asthma, so I took him to the emergency room because we thought he was having an asthma attack. He was treated in the ER for asthma and we were to follow up with our family physician, which led to a referral to a pulmonologist. I distinctly remember not liking the pulmonologist. I felt he was brushing us off when he told us he was confident Wyatt had food allergies. What?! Food allergies? He doesn't have any reaction to the food he eats, it is his lungs and skin that are the problem! After we had him tested for food allergies, we learned that Wyatt was allergic to peanuts, along with tree nuts, eggs, and soy. How?? How did we not know this? How did we not know that his lung and skin issues were symptoms of his food allergies? How did I not know that this "sick" child wasn't sick, but it was the food he was eating that was making him sick.
After the food allergy diagnosis, we were overwhelmed trying to educate ourselves, but like most, we became complacent. We never realized how important it would be to have our epinephrine auto-injector with us at all times or the importance of knowing the signs and symptoms of anaphylaxis. We were lucky for many years, until our luck ran out. On November 30th, 2019 our lives changed forever.
We went to a potluck party at a friend's house and Wyatt ingested what he thought was a safe food. Wyatt began to have a hard time breathing. We figured it was just his asthma acting up from playing a game of basketball. As we rushed him to the car, he collapsed and never regained consciousness.
On December 3rd, 2019, our quick witted 12 year old, with a heart of gold, lost his battle with anaphylaxis.
