True-life PATIENT CASEBOOK
Tears welled as my classmates giggled about a party.
Games, music, birthday cake.
Sounds fun, I thought but I hadn’t been invited.
I was 8, and five years earlier I’d been diagnosed with severe eczema and allergies to peanuts and tree nuts.
My brother Rourke, then 1, had been diagnosed too.
A shock for my parents Mike, then 36, and Karen, 35, because nobody else in our family had allergies, including our older sister Jamilla, then 5.
Mum slathered me in steroid cream three times daily and my skin gradually started to improve.
But food containing nuts could bring anaphylaxis — an allergic reaction that could put my life in danger.
Vomiting, struggling to breathe, swelling of the face, lips, tongue and throat, rapid heartbeat, abdominal pain,…