thankful for canadian health care

I was going to mope on here today. I'm having a really hard time emotionally with Saturday's events. The emotional impact of them hit me yesterday and hit me hard. I was a wreck. It feels sometimes like I'm just waiting for Bravo to die. Maybe soon, maybe when he's 4, maybe when he's 8 or 15 or 37, but this could get him anytime anywhere. And I'm having a hard time with it.

But then I did some looking around the Internet. 6% of kids under 3 have anaphylactic food allergies. 6% is scary. That's a lot of kids. 3% of all Canadians have them. This is not rare to me and my family, even though sometimes it feels like it. And anaphylaxis is deadly when epinephrine has either been delayed, not given at all, or given in inadequate amounts. If you get that epi pen in quickly, and have a back up in case the reaction is still severe in 5-15 minutes and call an ambulance then chances are that the person will be fine. So we make sure that everyone in contact with Bravo knows about his allergies and knows what to do if he starts up with a reaction. Reactions happen. I can minimize the risk, but I can't control it. As much as I would like to put him in a plastic bubble and feed him plastic food and never let him or his food out of my sight, I can't do that. It wouldn't be good for me or for him or for anyone else involved. But I can prepare and still protect him. And eventually teach him to protect himself.

And I am thankful that we live in a time and place where there is epi pens. And 911 and ambulances and paramedics and medicine and hospitals and public health care. And I'm thankful that I don't need to worry about insurance companies and filing claims to get crazy hospital bills covered. I'm thankful that Bravo will not need to face being denied coverage because he's a "high risk" individual. I'm thankful for benefits that pay for ambulances ($380!!!) and for epi pens. I'm thankful that there are people that care about my boy and go out of their way to keep him safe. I am thankful there are people who are paid to help him when he's had a reaction. I am thankful for my little boy. And that he's still here with me. Because in another time or place he might not be.

So as much as being Allergy Mom really sucks some days, it's not necessarily a  death sentence for him. And I know that other families face much harder struggles on a daily basis.

I am thankful that when he eats something and gets very sick and it could be deathly if not treated that he's back to being normal old Bravo 8 hours later. Allergies are strange.

And I'm thankful that there's a LOT of research going into allergies. And that there are smart people trying to fix them. And I'm hopeful that by the time my little Bravo has babies that maybe, just maybe, he won't have to be on the parent end of this and and they will have found a cure for allergies.