After they “deliberately put peanuts into an allergic teammate’s locker,” adolescent football players have come under scrutiny.
At the age of nine months, Carter Mannon’s allergy to peanuts was identified.
He’s managed to lead a regular life and even join the Lake Travis High School varsity football team in Texas by being cautious.
But according to Mannon’s mother, his friends stocked his locker with potentially fatal amounts of peanuts after learning about his allergy.
Shawna Mannon tells People that she remembers the exact moment her son’s allergy became apparent: “My husband was making a peanut butter sandwich right next to him while he was sitting on the counter.” Carter accidentally smeared peanut butter over himself when he reached inside the container.
He immediately developed hives; they were just like his handprint. At that point, we understood, “Oh, he must be allergic.”
His severe allergy was well-recorded at his school.
He had actually had the same symptoms on a previous event when he inadvertently consumed a tainted cookie, necessitating two EpiPen doses and a hospital visit.
Anaphylaxis is a severe, perhaps fatal allergic reaction, according to the Mayo Clinic. The immune system unleashes a barrage of chemicals during anaphylaxis, which may send the body into shock. Breathing becomes difficult due to a quick drop in blood pressure and narrowing of the airways. You can develop a skin rash and a rapid, weak pulse. Additionally, you can feel queasy and throw up.The immediate treatment for anaphylaxis is an injection of epinephrine. It may be lethal if treatment is delayed.
Mannon experienced another frightening event following this shock, and according to his mother, it wasn’t an accident this time.
She claims that Mannon’s comrades chose to pull a potentially fatal “prank” on their fellow member who suffers from severe allergies.
Shawna clarifies: “They were teasing each other a little bit and asked, ‘But could it kill you if it touched you?’” “Yeah, it absolutely could,” he responds. It would cause anaphylactic shock if it got in his mouth, eyes, or nose. He then admitted to them that “yes, it could definitely kill me.”When they returned the following day, just before the game, they found peanuts in his cleats, on his jersey, and in his locker.
“They just kind of scattered a can of peanuts throughout his locker and put it in his cleats,” the source said.
Mannon reacted quickly and severely, breaking out in hives on his arm.
After the event was reported, the males implicated were made to swap locker rooms, bench for two days, and complete extra runs during practice.
Shawna, though, asserts that Mannon received criticism for this.
“The kid would flick him as he’s walking down the hall from behind,” the accuser says. There was a great deal of verbal abuse. Someone once placed a peanut butter granola bar in his backpack while he was in the locker room.
Shawna reported the claimed incident to the school board, but it was determined that it was not bullying.
“Bullying is a very specific behavior under the Texas Education Code, defined as an act or pattern of acts that physically harms a student or materially and substantially disrupts the educational process,” a spokeswoman of the Lake Travis Independent School District tells People. After our study was finished, we concluded that bullying did not meet the legal requirements.
Due to the abuse, Carter has since transferred schools; Shawna said she felt the school was “no longer a safe place for him.”
My wife started to distance herself from my daughter and me. One day, she left an envelope and disappeared
When my wife started pulling away from me and our daughter, I couldn’t understand why. My heartbreaking story is about how someone can love you so much that they try to protect you by all means. Read on to see how we traversed secrets, innocent lies, and heartache to unite as a family.
There’s something deeply unsettling about not knowing the whole story, especially when it involves the people you love the most. Okay, let me backtrack a bit, my name is Kevin, and Levine and I have been married for 15 lovely years.
We share one amazing child, Emily, who is still quite young and attending school. My wife and daughter mean the world to me, and I believe we have a great family. However, around six months ago, Levine started withdrawing and avoiding me and our daughter.
For months, I watched as my formerly loving and caring wife grew increasingly distant by the day. What started as small changes in her demeanor escalated into full-blown avoidance. Her smiles are fewer and her nights spent awake longer.
I even sometimes caught glimpses of her crying in the bathroom more than once. But every time I approached her about it, she brushed off my concerns with a shaky “I’m fine.” Yet, she wasn’t. And deep down, I knew it.
This unspoken “thing” hung over me and our daughter heavily, causing our family relationships to start cracking.
“Levine, please talk to me,” I pleaded one evening, finding her again at the window, staring into the backyard. Her back was to me, her shoulders tense.
“I just need some air, Kevin. That’s all,” she murmured, her voice hardly above a whisper.
I stepped closer, my concern deepening. “It’s been months of ‘just needing air.’ You’re scaring me, baby. You’re scaring Emily.”
She turned then, her eyes wet with unshed tears. “I can’t, not yet…” her voice trailed off as she turned back to the window, leaving me standing helplessly behind her.
I returned home yesterday from picking Emily up at school to find the house eerily silent. The morning Levine left was like any other, except she didn’t say goodbye. My stay-at-home wife wasn’t anywhere when we arrived.
However, on the kitchen table amidst the usual clutter of mail and Emily’s school books that she had come with, I found THIS DREADFUL ENVELOPE. My name scrawled across it in Levine’s familiar handwriting.
My heart sank to my stomach as I tore it open with trembling hands. Inside, her letter lay, written in the same shaky hand that had addressed the envelope. As I opened it, tears streamed down my face as I found out what she had been going through all along:
“My dearest husband,
If you’re reading this, then I am already gone. I couldn’t bear to tell you in person, for fear I would never be able to leave. I have been diagnosed with stage 3 cancer, and the doctors are not hopeful. It is my deepest fear to become a burden to you and our beautiful Emily.
I want to protect you both from the pain of watching me deteriorate. I love you both more than life itself, and it’s because I love you that I need to do this. Please understand that this is the hardest choice I’ve ever made, but it’s made out of love. I am at Clear Life Center, a quiet hospice two states away. Please forgive me.
With all my love, always,
Levine.”
Tears blurred my vision as I tried to compose myself. My lovely, beautiful wife had chosen solitude over the anguish she believed her illness would cause us. If I thought I loved her before, at that moment I realized I loved her MORE THAN EVER.
Without a second thought, I packed a bag. I told Emily, “My baby, mommy’s not feeling too well, and we are going on a little trip to see her, okay?” My brave little girl with a worried face asked, “Is she going to be okay, Daddy?”
Not wanting to lie to her, I replied, “She’s going to feel much better when she sees us, I promise.” We drove straight to the facility my wife mentioned, desperate to be with her, regardless of her wishes to shield us.
When we arrived and I found her, the reality of her condition hit hard. Levine was frail, a shadow of the vibrant woman I had fallen in love with. Yet, when she saw us, her eyes lit up with a mix of joy and sorrow, and she instantly looked better, than I had envisioned!
“Kevin, Emily,” she murmured, reaching out weakly.
“Mom, why didn’t you tell us? We could have helped…” Emily sobbed, clutching her mother’s hand. “I thought… I thought it would be easier this way,” Levine whispered, tears streaming down her face.
“We needed to be here, with you. No matter what,” I said, gripping her hand.
We spent those last weeks of her illness by her side, achieving her life goals before her death. Whenever she was strong enough, we went out for walks, well, she was in a wheelchair. She got to tell Emily all the things she wished her to know before her passing.
“I’ll always love you, my sweet baby girl. And I want you to know that I will be with you in spirit for all the days of your life,” Levine told Emily as they embraced, shedding more tears.
We talked, laughed, and sometimes sat in silence, savoring the precious moments we had left. Emily read her favorite books aloud, and I held her mother’s hand every night until she fell asleep.
My darling wife passed away holding my hand. Emily curled up beside her, a peaceful expression on her face. Her last days were not filled with the pain and suffering she had feared but with love and the warmth of her family.
In the wake of her passing, I’ve come to realize the profound strength it took for her to make the decision she did. Levine’s act, initially so incomprehensible to me, was one of selfless love. The kind that sees beyond immediate pain to the eventual peace it can bring to those left behind.
Now, as Emily and I adjust to a world without Levine, we do so with a deep understanding of her last gift to us. Not just the envelope that explained her absence, but the enduring presence of her love.
A love that, like the subtle fragrance of her favorite flowers, lingers around us, invisible yet palpable. It remained a gentle reminder that even in their absence, love remains.
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