Blue To The Sky. Orange To The Thigh.

He’s been taught to use it since three.

He’s seven now.

Time goes by and he practices and still… tonight’s drill was a shot in his lower butt, then his upper knee… he gets close to the thigh…and always misses. This skittish kid.. and his EPI pen.

We have this rhyme we do that he refuses to rhyme and instead completes the entirety of the need.

“Hey grown up! Help me please! Use the EPI.. PEN!!”

He’s so aware of his food allergies. He’s so aware how they have become who he is. And how he has grown with them, through them, out of them.

Cow’s milk until he was two. Peanuts until an oral challenge had him consume two tablespoons. Tree nuts remain that still cross contaminate so many things… especially baked anything and…sweets.

We’ve carried EPIs with us for most of his life. These last few years since he started school… they were either locked away in with the nurse or in a “very obvious medical bag” mommy had with her.

Today… I bought a purse.

I haven’t owned a purse…in… can’t remember. It’s always been a bag that counts as luggage at airports or a clutch or my back pocket… plus this black awful thing we carry representing the … life or death always immediate thing.