Allergies on the Plane

This is one of those “oh dear, that’s funny, because it didn’t happen to me and I know it turned out okay in the end” stories….

Imagine being 10 years old and being told on your first day of your most exciting adventure EVER, one where in particular you have been looking forward to experiencing a whole bunch of different experiences, including the food which everyone has been talking about so enthusiastically and which, in the interest of elevating the experience even more, you have refused to pre-sample any of the local versions, that….. you should not eat anything strange???????  Well, this was my son’s experience on our trip to Vietnam and Cambodia, back in 2009/2010.  Poor thing.  He had been through so much in the days leading up to this, upon hearing those words from the doctor he just burst into tears.  Thankfully she didn’t mean he couldn’t eat anything that was different from what he was used to eating, besides being extremely upsetting to my son this would have been pretty difficult, we were in Vietnam after all, and we originated from Calgary.  There wasn’t really a whole lot of food available that was just like what we get at home, yikes!  No, she meant he shouldn’t eat any type of food that he had never tried before, at least for the next couple of days.  That, we could do.  And hearing that also stopped the tears, which was nice, because the little guy had just been through an awful lot recently, including the whole experience of having this little reaction which precipitated the visit to the medical clinic in Hanoi in the first place….

My son was 10 years old, and we had been exceedingly lucky in that he had never, ever, in his entire short life, even in that baby and toddler stage when it seems everyone goes through it, experienced an ear infection.  Or anything else requiring antibiotics.  Imagine that, hey?  We’re the only people I know of who have managed this.  Amazing.  And it’s not as though I hadn’t ever taken him in for an ear infection…. I had done so several times, to the point where I was starting to feel quite silly, but it had always been something else, typically teething issues.  So here he was now, 10 years old, and never having had any antibiotics.  And then, it happened.  One week before we were to leave on our huge exciting three week independent excursion to Vietnam and Cambodia he was struck with…… an ear infection.  He was finally joining in with the rest of his peers in this experience, oh yeah.  But, well, although a bit inconvenient timing wise it was hardly un-doable.  After all, one week is plenty of time, when provided with appropriate medication, to overcome an ear infection.  So off I went to the pharmacy to get him going on that right away, so we would be all good to go for our trip.   

Well, it’s a good thing I am a chatty person, and the pharmacist was also.  Because when I was picking up my son’s prescription I started chatting with the pharmacist, and how wasn’t this ironic that my son comes down with his first ear infection just one week before we are due to get on a plane for this huge and wonderful independent travelling trip to Vietnam and Cambodia (all while my son is standing there being most uncomfortable, but then he’s used to his mother’s chatty ways, and I am sure in the end he was grateful for this particular occasion of chattiness).  Well, the pharmacist, being helpful, told me that, although it was unusual, perhaps I might want to consider taking some anti-histamines with us, since sometimes, but only sometimes, people have delayed allergic reactions to medication.  Really?  I said, how interesting.  How far into taking the antibiotics can these delayed reactions show up?  Until the person stops taking the antibiotics was the pharmacist’s response.  Hunh, thought I.  Well, I certainly wouldn’t want to be caught in the middle of who knows where, probably some airport, with an allergic reaction happening.  So I picked up some anti-histamines as well, packed them into the carry-on, and promptly forgot all about it.  Until….. 

Yep, you guessed it (as though the title didn’t give it away), one week after starting the antibiotics, 3 days before their course would have been run in full, at the most inconvenient time of 6 hours into the 12 hour flight between Seattle and Seoul, I noticed my son energetically scratching his legs.  What are you doing?  I asked.  My legs are itchy, he answered.  Hunh, said I, as I hunted around for his next dosage of antibiotics.  He keeps scratching his legs.  I pull out his meds and then, I stop.  Wait a minute……..  let’s check out those legs.  We pull up his pant legs and, yep, there they are.  All sorts of wonderful little, apparently very itchy, red spots.  Oh no.  So I was a bad medication provider and decided to stop feeding him antibiotics, and start feeding him anti-histamines.  6 hours to go until we touch down, aye, aye, aye……

Well, I think the anti-histamines did something, but they weren’t quite strong enough to halt everything.  He didn’t have any issues with swelling or breathing, ha, ha, I didn’t sleep for the remaining 6 hours as I was keeping an eye on my son, but, well, by the time we landed he looked like a little marionette.  We’re fairly pale skinned as it is, by the time we were getting off the plane his face was white as paper, except for these two, oh, 3” or so diameter red spots on his cheeks.  Dear me.  And this was the year of H1N1 when they were checking everyone going through every airport.  Thankfully I could honestly answer all the questions of fever, coughing, sneezing, with an honest “no”.  And thankfully we were coming in at such a ridiculous hour of the day/night that nobody was terribly interested in trying to unfold the small child (he looked like he was about 8 years old, maybe 7 actually) from around his mother’s arms to examine whether he had a runny nose.  Because I don’t think they would have been impressed with the colouration of his face, even if to anyone in the medical field it would likely have been quite apparent it was an allergic reaction, not an illness.  And I don’t think it would have been very much fun to start off our trip in quarantine somewhere….

So through customs we stumbled, my child and I, I deposited him on a bench, collapsed next to him, waited a few hours, caught our flight to Hanoi, stumbled through yet another set of customs people (but they are so nice over there, when they see a mother with an unconscious child they just move you to the front of the line, thank-you Asian customs people!), and arrived in the Hanoi baggage claim, where we waited another two hours for luggage that never came.  After submitting the appropriate papers for that, we were finally, oh, 12 hours or so?, after the start of my son’s allergic reaction able to leave for somewhere comfy to collapse (our hotel), where I fell into bed hoping that the next morning I would wake up with luggage and a child without spots….

Yeah, well, I did wake up better rested, and thus prepared for the adventure of getting myself to the international medical clinic (which thankfully I had pre-researched and had written down the location of prior to departing Calgary).  This was actually not as bad an experience as one might think it could be, jet-lagged, lost (but then, I’m always lost), heading to a medical clinic on the first day of our trip instead of adjusting to the new environment.  We kind of made it into an adventure.  We did have all day, really.  We even managed to make it there before noon.  My son was a trooper, managing the heat (it was only 16C, but it had been -25 or something like that when we left home), the traffic, the noise, the crowds, the missing pyjamas (they weren’t in our carry-ons), and then sitting patiently in the waiting room to go in and see the doctor, who told him he couldn’t eat any strange foods.  And that was it.  Perhaps he had been looking forward to lunch?  Thankfully though, that little miscommunication was cleared up, the clinic provided us with the medication, and, well, off we went for some delicious Vietnamese food for lunch.  My son tried all of it, and all of it except the plain rice was too spicy for him to eat much of, but he was content because he got to try it, I was content because I got to eat extra, and I now always, always, travel with anti-histamines, even when there is absolutely no reason to.  It’s like when the toddler pulls the coffee cup off the table and almost gets burnt…..