The Junior Mints labels says "Milk and Egg May Be Present".  Well, they obviously are present in the
box we have in our cabinet.  My five year old son ate seven junior mints candies this
afternoon and within minutes he began to have an anaphylactic
reaction. He is severely allergic to both milk and egg and has asthma.

It began with hives that got worse, trouble breathing that got worse,
and then he began to get very sluggish and unresponsive. Just before
the shot, hives were all over his torso, his eyes were
rolling/closing, his breathing was very raspy and short, he couldn't
breathe through his nose at all, he was slumping over, and he was not
answering questions or talking.

I was not home at the time. During all this (which was just over the
course of thirty minutes), my husband gave him Benadryl (no response);
albuterol (no response); and then called 911 and they said to give him
epinephrine. He was immediately better after the epi-pen, jr. shot. The
paramedics came and we followed up at the ER where they watched him
for a couple of hours and gave him steroids which he'll be on for a
few days.

Our allergist said that this was a clinical anaphylactic reaction.  The sluggishness/unresponsiveness was his neurological system shutting down.  It happened so quickly and so quietly that I can see how a parent or caregiver might not recognize the gravity of the situation.  One might think the child was just going to sleep.  But the child is actually losing consciousness as multiple body systems are being affected.  Our doctor's advice, along with STRICTLY AVOIDING all traces of allergens, was that if we ever see two body systems affected--any two systems from the list of:  Skin: (hives/swelling); Respiratory (breathing trouble/coughing/wheezing); Stomach (vomiting, pain, diarrhea); Neurological (sluggishness, not responding normally, eye rolling) to give epinephrine IMMEDIATELY.

We are thanking God for getting our son through this and bringing him back
home safe and well!  I am still going through a sort of post traumatic stress/ post allergic reaction stress.  I keep replaying the events over and over in my mind, losing sleep, dealing with constant headache and I am cleaning out food cabinets, posting lists of safe foods on the cabinets, refilling my Epi-pen jr. prescriptions, and using a permanent marker to write warnings on foods that my husband and I eat that are not safe for the children.

It's so hard to mentally and emotionally process what it's like to have a child with a life-threatening food allergy, realizing that a tiny sip or bite of (or possibly even skin contact with) an allergen could kill them within minutes . . . knowing that these tiny potential killers are everywhere you go, often unseen and unknown . . . wanting to keep them in a safe bubble but knowing God does not mean for us to live in fear . . .