CHOCCY Torment for mum as son in fight for life after finding her stock of treats
A MUM has told of her guilt at her boy ending up in a coma after eating her stash of chocolate.
Aisha Vaughan couldn’t give up her favourite treat when her two sons were diagnosed with extreme allergies to dairy, nuts, eggs and sesame seeds.
So she hid her Cadbury Wispa Bites under the bed.
But three-year-old Omar slipped away from his dad Curtis and found the chocolates while Aisha, 34, was at the cinema.
He immediately began struggling to breathe and choking.
At the hospital, medics put him in an induced coma to protect him while his body fought the reaction.
Aisha said: “Seeing our baby hooked up to a ventilator left me in floods of tears.
“This is my fault, I thought, tormented by the sight of Omar in pain.”
Aisha and Curtis, 38, were always extremely careful with food after the boys’ allergies were revealed.
And she felt comfortable leaving Omar with Curtis, along with son Isaac and daughter Suraiyah.
She said: “I have to be so careful about what I give them and it’s a factor that we consider every day.
“Even if the food merely touches their skin, they immediately break out in nasty boils and painful hives. It affects where we go out to eat, what we buy for dinner.
“And we make sure that wherever they go – whether it’s school or to a friend’s house – people around them are aware of just how serious their condition is.”
She added: “It’s tough, but we manage it by being disciplined and making sure we check everything before we buy it.”
The chocolate hidden under the bed was the only dairy product in their home.
Aisha added: “It was hard being mum to kids with such extreme dietary requirements and there are so many things I have had to cut out. My beloved chocolate was the only thing I’d kept.”
Before leaving the house to go the cinema with pals, Aisha ate a Wispa Bite from her secret supply.
Then she stuffed the carrier bag containing the sweets into its hiding place under the bed frame.
She said: “It was rare for me to get a night out without the kids and I had been looking forward to this evening for weeks.
“It was halfway through the film when I heard my phone beep. It was a text from Curtis.
“He said, ‘Omar can’t breathe’. I gasped, immediately understanding he was having a reaction.” Aisha rushed home to find Curtis administering adrenaline to the little boy using an EpiPen.
When she asked her husband what had happened, he explained that Omar had discovered the bag of chocolate.
Aisha said: “I felt sick with guilt. I watched helplessly as he tended to Omar but the EpiPen didn’t seem to