Hello All...A couple months ago my 13 year old autistic son went into anaphalxis at school...there was no known exposure..but he is very highly allergic ..off the charts...cant touch it...and probably inhalation sensitive... his alergist told us that in his experience my son has a rare form of the allergy. We have been trying to find a peanut free school for him,etc. He is the first epi-pen ever administered at the school. There are other allergic kids, they just havent required an epi during school hours.
Anyway, a well known newspaper (at least for where I live) contacted me yesterday and wants to do an interview, and possibly a photo shoot with my son.
I do have some concerns about causing friction with my sons school as we are still in heated discussions over what happened to him, and trying to get a referral for the peanut free school etc. I am not looking to make things worse. SO i am thinking I should focus on the dangers for allergic kids in general....as well as sharing what happened to him in school that day...the 911 call, the hospital,etc.
My questions for you all- is there anything in particular you would want someone to hit on in general for an article like this? How can I take this opportunity to HELP?? And also- as far as a possible photo shoot- i just wrote to the person doing the article and said i do have safety concerns about making my son a potential target to people who dont want peanut restrictions in a school and might be angry about it...i dont know yet what I am going to do about that. Would you be concerned about that? At the same time, I think maybe if people could see the actual child in question, it might seem more 'real' to them and have more of an impact...
like everyone else here, i just want my son to be safe. let me know your thoughts if you can, thanks :)
Ha, funny you should ask. I just actually sent a news reporter a letter tonight. I started off talking about the little girl in VA that died yesterday. I then spoke of my daughters 7 day episode on mechanical ventillation due to a peanut reaction and the fact they almost had to start compressions and put her on a heart lung by pass machine. Then I told them about how I had been ridiculed in the past about how I was a fanatic over something so trivial.... Then I went on to say that I dont dislike anyone for feeling the way they do about peanut allergies. There just needs to be more information given. People should not have to ask for the information. This kind of hidden death trap needs to be made more aware. Of course I didnt put it in those terms but....I dont want my daughter to succumb to the fate of that poor little 7 year old VA girl, I dont want any other adult or child to succumb to that fate either. I dont want anyone to have to carry the burden of accidently killing someone with a peanut allergy because of thier ignorance or carelessness. People just dont understand what it can do. Your time with the reporter doesnt have to be a finger pointing session reguarding the school. It just should be based on how you want to keep your son safe and keep other known and unknown anaphylaxis allergy sufferers safe.