Welcome everyone! Today we have a guest post from author and blogger Hannah Gaudette about allergies — enjoy!
I want to tell you a story.
A girl with severe food allergies attended a family get-together. The host had been informed of her allergies, but assured her family the main course of the meal was safe. He’d gone to a lot of trouble to prepare it. So they had to take him at his word.
But it wasn’t safe. And she had a delayed anaphylactic reaction the next day.
That story isn’t one person’s story. It’s the story of many people who live with a severe food allergy. I’m anaphylactic to wheat. So I live gluten-free. It’s not a fad diet – it’s not a preference or the “healthy choice” – it’s life and death. Like anyone else living with anaphylaxis, I risk my life every time I trust someone who says, “The food is safe.”
So, yeah, I rarely trust someone who says that. 😉 Unless I can know all the ingredients and know exactly how and where the food was prepared. And it’s very rare for all those checkpoints to pass inspection. So I’m left in the difficult position of apologizing to the very kind – and often eager – friend or host, and finding some hospitable way to say, “Sorry, but I’m not risking my life today.”
The misconceptions about allergies are huge – they’re also dangerous. In schools, a child might require strict adherence to a 504 plan (way to go, parents and teachers, for that 504 plan!), while parents of a non-allergic child may be frustrated with the situation. But I would ask those people, if you knew a peanut or a sip of milk or a bagel at a restaurant could kill your child, how would you feel about it then?
We don’t choose this. We don’t want this. But we’re stuck with our allergy, and I plan to own it. I want to raise awareness, because at this point, we live in an allergy-filled world so dangerous to our well-being, some of us are risking our lives. We don’t care to live dangerously. We just want to live.
Thrive, actually. The best I’ve been able to do so far is survive. Keep breathing. I’m learning to thrive with food allergies. And I’d like to challenge other allergic teens to do the same.
You’re not alone. You can thrive again.
A rather significant obstacle that comes with a severe allergy is anxiety. And teens in this position are more likely to experience depression. Why? Because we isolate ourselves to stay safe, because too few people are truly aware of the dangers of allergies.
There are options. Classifying food allergies as a disability allows for a 504 plan in schools, adding additional protection for a child. Homeschool is a wonderful avenue for families, and it helps with the anxiety factor by keeping a child away from the public school setting. A fairly new – and very exciting – option is an allergen detection service dog. These dogs are specially trained to alert their handler to the presence of an allergen.
How does that work, if service dogs are only for those with disabilities? A severe allergy should be – and has been, in many circumstances – labeled as a disability.
Children, and especially teens, with food allergies don’t want to shout it from the rooftops. We want to blend in. Be normal. But the rooftop may be our only platform from which to raise awareness for the existence and dangers of food allergies. If we can slash through the misconceptions and the stigma, then maybe we’ll be one step closer to being free of the isolation and the fear.
That’s my dream, anyway. 🙂
It’s not a fad diet. It’s not a preference, or a “healthy choice.” It’s life and death. And I’m asking you, whether you suffer from food allergies or not, to take up this message and help us make this allergy-filled world just a little safer for each other.
We were created to thrive. So let’s thrive.
Thank you for having me today! I would encourage you to share this any way you can. And stop by my blog at aneedtobreathe.com. I’d love to hear from you! Hope to see you there. Peace out. <3
Hannah Gaudette
Guest Writer
Hannah Gaudette is a home-school teen living in the hills of New England. When she’s not writing stories or training dogs, it’s a safe bet you can find her with some other animal, like cats. She’s a life-enthusiast who loves the ocean and The Piano Guys. Enough said.
Thank you! 🙂
Thanks for sharing your story!
Thanks so much for sharing this. I had a life-threatening and rare allergy at age 21. It was a scary time for me and no one I knew understood what I was going through. I’m glad you’re working on building awareness and sharing, because I think that would’ve been so encouraging for me if I had had that.
God bless!
Glad I could share it! Raising awareness is so important right now. Thank you for your comment.
Thank you so much for posting. My family tries to be supportive and understanding, but I often get really frustrated when I say “I can’t have that”my, and mom says something like” You can have it, you’re choosing not to”, ie, “don’t complain, it’s your choice” I always feel so frustrated because, although I’ve never had an anaphylactic response in the sense that I had I had to go to the hospital, gluten does give me asthma attacks, hives, severe digestive issues, severe fatigue and joint pain… So I feel like it’s as much a choice for me to not eat anything the others are eating as it is for someone caught in a trap to cut their own leg off. 😢
I understand that frustration. It’s such a hard thing to live with. You don’t have to have a life-threatening reaction to be in a position where you don’t have a choice. And yet “I don’t have a choice” is the hardest thing for others to understand.
Hang in there! I’m with you. <3 God bless.