Worst feeling

On Saturday I experienced the worst feeling I could ever have imagined. The weather was beautiful that afternoon so we had spent a lot of time outside after an early morning rain storm. I noticed our basil plants had begun exploding so decided it was time to whip up a batch of pesto. Just to give you an idea we have 3 basil plants, I love pesto and spend lots of summer days eating it. It was a little before dinner time and LB was getting hungry so we put him in his chair to watch me make it up and eat some snacks. Well, whenever I am cooking, LB always wants to try it. So without thinking of the walnuts in the pesto I gave him a little taste off my fingers. A couple seconds later I realized it had nuts in it but both W and I weren't too concerned since he is over one and we don't have a history of food allergies in our families. 

Well unfortunately, LB had an allergic reaction and his eyes and lips began to swell. I was freaking out! We called the nurse line because he was still breathing fine and as I was on the phone with her LB started getting hives in more places. To say the least we were freaked and the nurse instructed us to get him to the ER right away. I have never seen W drive so fast in my entire life. We made it to the ER pretty quick and they ushered him back. Internally I was freaking out but knew I had to stay calm for LB. The nurses looked over him quickly then the doctor came in. Luckily, since he didn't have swelling in the throat he just got a shot of benadyrl instead of steroids. In about an hour it had calmed down a bunch and we were able to go home. 

I felt quite awful for the whole event since I was the one who gave him the food but I am so glad he only had a taste of it and not a whole meal. I could not imagine how bad it would've been. Praising Jesus for that for sure. 

Here are a few pictures we snapped of him. We were waiting for the nurse to instruct us as to what to do and we figured it would be good to document for future reference. And I figured I'd share it with you all in case you experience the same thing, which I pray you do not, you know what an allergic reaction looks like. Although it is quite obvious. 

Do any of your kids have food allergies? If so, how do you avoid them? And how do you make sure other people around don't share with your child? I am a big sharer and lots of times I give kids what I am eating without even thinking about it. It never crossed my mind that this could happen, even in our age where it seems lots of kids have allergies. I definitely do not want to see LB like this ever again or any kid for that matter. So what is the best way to avoid this without putting him in a bubble?