Lisa Rutter
Director, Support Group Development

Lisa Rutter

Director, Support Group Development

I started my journey with food allergies when my son, Evan, had his first reaction at the age of 12 months. At the time, we didn’t understand food allergies or know what was going on. Evan had one little lick of some peanut butter ice cream and immediately developed a rash around his mouth. I reported this to our pediatrician, and he advised us to hold off on giving our son peanut butter until he was three or four years old.

Throughout the next couple of years Evan continued to have odd occurrences such as random projectile vomit and swollen eyes. All of these incidents were dismissed by our pediatrician as being “nothing,” and this left my family to just speculate that it was some type of illness or bug bites causing the swollen eyes. When Evan was two and a half years old, we relocated to Michigan. We had friends over to our new place for the first time. I decided to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for his playmates and just a jelly sandwich for Evan. So I made everyone’s sandwiches and then I rinsed and wiped clean the knife to cut Evan’s sandwich in half. Shortly after lunch, his eye was swollen so badly that he reminded me of the character in the movie “Rocky.” I flushed it with water and gave him Benadryl. I couldn’t figure out why this was happening again. Thankfully, the reaction went away.  Around that same time, we were grocery shopping and Evan was given a peanut butter cookie from the bakery counter. He took a tiny bite, spit it out, and complained he didn’t like it. I then asked the bakery for a plain sugar cookie instead. Evan’s mood quickly declined and he became very cranky and agitated. I then took him into the bathroom and he started crying and then vomited everywhere. At the time, I thought he was just getting sick.

In March 2011, my son went in for testing at his allergist’s office. He was tested for peanut, tree nuts, pet allergies, and environmental allergies. My son was diagnosed with environmental allergies and severe food allergies to peanuts and tree nuts. This was a wake-up call for our family, and I immediately learned as much as I could about food allergies. Looking back now, I feel so ignorant, but I really was when it came to food allergies. If people around us would have been more knowledgeable about food allergies, we could have prevented so many close calls with my son’s life.

As FAACT’s Director of Support Group Development, I plan to work on support group development because education and support are so important for food-allergic families. I want to continue to raise awareness and spread food allergy education to everyone around us.