Thank you

Update: We have the Epipens… hoorah… thank you all! 

My son nearly died from a severe allergic reaction.

I don’t know how else to write it, so there you go.

One morning he started rubbing his eye, which seemed a little swollen. In a few minutes half of his face was red, his eyelids were bulging so much that he couldn’t see out, spots covered his chest, he was coughing and then he fell asleep on the floor.

We arrived at the hospital and the reaction seemed to calm down. To be on the safe side, the doctor suggested keeping him in for observation.

Then a few minutes later came a second, stronger reaction.

I’d texted my husband to come and help (I was nursing my one month old and trying to contain my four year old at the time). One minute I was reassuring my husband that he was OK, the next I was telling him to run.

The doctor reassured me in English, then perhaps not realising I understood, told her assistant to administer the adrenaline quickly ‘because we [were] losing him’.

But this post isn’t about him. It isn’t about me. It’s about you.

Thank you.

This post is about the kindness of strangers.

There is a global shortage of Epipens, and in Chile they are extremely scarce. Even getting hold of adrenaline to administer via a syringe is very complicated.

I’ve taken to social media to try and track a couple of Epipens down. I’ve been liaising with family, friends, the British embassy and complete strangers.

The feedback has been a little overwhelming. Overwhelming in a good way. 

A complete stranger who offered to delay his flight stopover in the US. A nurse liaising with doctors and pharmacies all over the US. People from Spain, Belgium, Italy, Germany, the US, the UK, Uruguay…

Thank you.

And most importantly, thank you to the mother of the child with an egg allergy who gave me one of her child’s spare Epipens. Alas it’s expired but we hope it would still work. It’s definitely better than nothing in a life threatening situation. I know just how precious these drugs are and I’m astonished by her generosity.

I’m not going to publish her name, but she knows who she is. She understands what I’ve been feeling over the last week and has been following up with me to check in on Rafa. I will never, ever forget her act of kindness.

Thank you.

Rafa is home and is now recovering with medication. He’s napping peacefully, but he’ll be up soon so I’m cutting this post short.

We still haven’t got the Epipens we so desperately need, and I’m very scared.

But for all those people out there that have offered help, please don’t think because I haven’t replied that I haven’t noticed.

Thank you.

If you have any information how I can urgently source a 0.15mg Epipen jr in Santiago de Chile, please message me via this link.