In it the author, Elizabeth Curtis Sittenfeld, describes her terror at visiting playgrounds with her young daughter, Claire, who has severe allergies to nuts, eggs, and dairy.
(Do you see deliciousness here? Or danger?)
I disagree with Sittenfeld's conclusion (that parents should either not bring any high-allergen snacks to playgrounds or they should monitor their children's snacking closely and then wipe off the children's hands with wet wipes). But some of the lines in her article made me feel, for the first time, like someone was putting words to what severe gluten intolerance feels like.
She writes:
I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say that allergic families live in a parallel universe in which what is harmless to everyone else requires extreme vigilance from us. In the months after Claire’s diagnosis, my relationship to food changed so much that I felt as if I had woken up one day, still living in the same country I'd always lived in, but that I could no longer speak the language.
YES. For months after my diagnosis I walked around looking at foods that contained gluten like they were not actually food. Like people were eating cardboard or bricks or poison. It was such a weird feeling. 98% of the stuff out there in convenience stores or restaurants was suddenly toxic to me. I felt like I had woken up one day and all the rules had changed. Because, in fact, they had. At least for me.
She continues:
One of the first things that I realized after Claire’s allergies were diagnosed, shortly before her first birthday, was that I had to accept the fact that the world is full of people who just ate a peanut-butter sandwich and didn’t wash their hands. There’s a lot I can’t control.
Again, YES. I can't tell you how often I wash my hands in my line of work. It's a good idea because of germs, of course. I don't want to be the one who passes the current flu bug around the whole community. But I also wash and wash and wash because I shake a lot of hands. I hold a lot of hands. And I never know who just held a piece of bread and is passing on a few crumbs to me.
It doesn't happen often, but every once in awhile I get gluten-sick and cannot figure out why. It's maddening.
I pray that my son is not gluten intolerant. I pray and pray and pray. I want him to be the "normal" kid. The one who doesn't have to bring his own cupcake to the birthday party. The one who doesn't have to learn about the pitfalls of modified food starch and caramel coloring and malt vinegar at a tender young age.
Being gluten intolerant is no fun. Yet it's (usually) not fatal. My heart goes out to Sittenfeld and other parents of children with severe food allergies. It's exhausting to see danger everywhere.
Especially when that danger is very real.
Do you have any severe food allergies (besides gluten intolerance) in your household? How do you cope?
Teachers would benefit from this message.
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