Raising a child who has severe allergies is not an easy thing for parents to have to handle. There are so many challenges and fears, worrying about when a reaction will happen and trying to teach the young child how to be safe. It's a lot, and it can be terrifying. Having medication on hand – something like an EpiPen – is fundamental to keeping a child stable enough to head to the hospital to get treatment. The medication isn't cheap in the United States, and that truth is at the center of an argument between a dad and his sister.
An aunt took to Reddit to get some advice on a situation surrounding her older brother and his son.
Posting to Reddit's AITA, a young aunt (OP) shared some history of her situation before asking for advice. "Basically, my nephew has a pretty severe peanut allergy, to the point where they carry an epipen around all the time just in case," the OP said. "From what I know, if he mistakenly eats a peanut or something, they have to use the epipen asap."
OP is only 16 years old, so she still lives at home with her parents, and her brother pops by with his son often.
"My brother drops my nephew off at my parent’s house pretty randomly, most of the time he’ll call ahead but sometimes he comes without warning," she explained, "but my parents are usually there and responsible. Of course when we know my nephew is coming, we put away all the peanut products."
What brought her to Reddit happened earlier in the day when she ordered lunch for herself.
OP said she didn't know her brother and nephew would be stopping by. She left her chicken nugget lunch on the table while she finished up a class for school, "and when I walked out I saw my nephew eating one of my nuggets."
She said, "I panicked because I knew that Chick Fil A uses peanut oil to fry their chicken."
Wanting to keep her nephew safe, she ran to tell her brother what he did.
"I ran and told my brother that my nephew ate a chicken nugget that was fried with peanut oil and he immediately used the epipen on my nephew," she said.
Sounds like what you're supposed to do, right? Well, her sister-in-law was not happy. "When my brother’s wife found out, she was furious because apparently peanut oil is refined and therefore my nephew isn’t allergic to it, so they had just wasted an epipen," she explained.
Now her brother is "blaming" her and wants her to pay to replace the EpiPen "since it's my fault it was used," she said. "But I feel like, as his dad, he should’ve been aware of what his son was or wasn’t allergic to and stopped him from eating something if he wasn’t sure he was allergic to it."
That was their last EpiPen, and her brother told her he can't afford another one.
"I’m 16, so I do have a job, but it’s minimum wage, and I only have about $800 saved and it’s part of what I’m saving up for college. I can’t afford to spend $600 on an epipen," she wrote and then asked the Reddit community if she's in the wrong.
"NTA – you were concerned for his safety and alerted his parent to the possible issue," one person commented. "It's always better to be safe than sorry – sure, in hindsight it was a waste of an epipen, but better to waste it than not use it when it was actually needed." The person also added that the price of an EpiPen in the United States is ridiculously high.
"NTA None of what happened was your fault," someone else replied. "Nephew took the nugget without asking. You told dad about the peanut oil. He administered the shot. Mom apparently knew peanut oil was ok so why didn’t dad? That’s on him. His kid, his responsibility. To ask a 16 year old who was only an unfortunate bystander to pay that bill is beyond ridiculous."
"I have a daughter with a peanut allergy," another person shared. "We’ve been told that refined peanut oil is ok, but we haven’t tried it. However, you don’t just use an epi-pen like that. He wasn’t showing symptoms of anything, and after you use the Epi-pen you’re supposed to call 911. The effects only last 15 minutes or so. (Not to mention the side effects of using an epi-pen unnecessarily. There’s something weird about this story, and not just that the dad didn’t know what was going on."
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