Allergic to Harvest

Harvest started Thursday afternoon. This brings a mix of emotions for me, but nothing but excitement for my boys. Last year my 6 yo ended up in the ER after playing in the wheat, and we later found out he is allergic to mold spores. Since he's not allergic to wheat, and last years crops were full of fungus, and he's on allergy meds, we thought this year might be better. However, the very first night he rode the combine from 6:00-7:15. By 9:00 I was giving him a breathing treatment. My son was convinced it was because the auger wasn't working right, so there was an immense amount of dirt, dust, and debris flying around with the combine door hanging open every time they unloaded.

So we tried it again. The second night he rode in the combine and seemed ok. He took a load of wheat to town and seemed ok. After dinner he was hanging out on the ladder of the wheat truck, refraining from getting in the wheat with all his cousins, because that is what set him off last year. After not even 15 minutes of standing on the ladder, his eyes started watering and he started wheezing. And back home we went for a treatment. My heart was breaking for this little guy. One minute he was crying because he had to leave the field, and the next he was declaring, "I don't think I ever want to do harvest ever again!" And the next he was crying because he wanted to go back and knew he shouldn't.

My friend, Casey, summarized my feelings the best. There are several things in this world that are hard for my son - making friends, going new places, trying new things, being adventurous, overcoming obsessive fear, socially interacting with people - but harvest is something he LOVES, that he has zero fear about, and that our family does every year.

So back to the allergy doctor we go to make some decisions about where to go from here. The more he's exposed, the worse the reactions are going to get, and the higher the chance he will develop asthma. That scares me. But the thought of putting him in a bubble and completely skipping harvest (when we live in the middle of one of the wheat fields) seems tricky as well.

That's my quandary for today. Tomorrow I'll tackle world peace.