Shocking News

I just cant believe this has happened

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10863345

A young girl has died from Anaphylaxis to a bee sting.  D.I.E.D.

She had a known allergy.

I dont know if they gave her an epipen or anapen.

I dont know how long it took for the ambulance to arrive.

I know she has a family who are in absolute shock, that something as small as a bee could kill their child.

It is a real eye opener to just what life threatening allergy actually means.  Life Threatening means you can DIE from an allergic reaction.

Life threatening means that there are no guarantees that medical intervention will save your life.

It is hard to believe that in this day and age, with all our knowledge, something like this can still happen.

Adrenaline, in the form of an anapen or epipen, buys you time until the ambulance comes.  I'm not sure how long before it starts to wear off, someone said it was 20 minutes.  So I guess if you only have one pen and the ambulance takes longer than that to come, you might get into the danger zone.

But once the ambulance comes and you go to hospital, you kind of feel safer.  They have everything you need to save you, dont they?  They have more adrenaline, they have oxygen, they have other drugs they inject into you via iv line.  How can the outcome be so very bad?

This is a real wake-up call for all us allergy parents and allergy sufferers out there.

Allergies can kill.

And no matter how prepared you are, the worst case scenario can happen.

We dont want to wrap our allergy kids in cotton wool.  But we dont want them to die.

I cant imagine what her family is going through.  It is so hard to believe.

I am certainly feeling a little tender around the edges right now.  Hoping and hoping that this never happens to my beautiful allergy kid.

Barbs x.

School Days

Well back to school tomorrow.

New lunch box bought, Lunch stuff sorted, water bottles in the fridge.

Togs and sports uniform in bag.

Uniform ready to put on.

Emergency kit checked and ready to go - Anapen, antihistimine, inhalers, all good.

Teacher and Principal informed about latest reactions.

Yup - think we are ready.

Here goes another stressful few days of hoping like crazy everything goes to plan.

Year 6 this year and it just doesn't seem to get any easier.

Barbs x.