Kindergarten registration

Yesterday, I went to the local elementary school to get Andrew registered for Kindergarten. It was a lot easier than I had expected because we'd gotten the forms a couple of weeks ago, and Tony's great about keeping all the necessary paperwork that we needed filed and at his fingertips.

I was so happy to see "Nut Free Zone" signs all over the school. There was also a sign that explained that two children at the school are severely allergic to nuts. I knew this already, as my next door neighbour's daughter was one of them. (The daughter had also told me about another student who would pass out if someone opened a bag of nuts on the other side of the classroom. The daughter had also been teased by someone chasing her around with a nut, so I do realize that, while the classroom is safe, the rest of the unsupervised environment might not be.)

I was told that the kindergarten teacher has had anaphylactic kids before, and all the teachers are regularly trained on how to use an epipen. I've also been told to contact the principal in August to set up a meeting with him and the kindergarten teacher, to talk about Andrew's types of reactions and how to recognize when he has a reaction. I also have to provide two epipens to the school.

It looks like they've got a nice system in place, and I'm just going to go with it. What a relief!

I'm also grateful to all the parents who came to that school before me, and did so much work in educating the principal and the teachers on anaphylaxis.

How to make chocolate lollipops

We had a fun adventure today. I've been reading a few blogs about dealing with Valentine's Day, and all the chocolate that comes out at that time, all of which are unsafe for Andrew.

When in doubt, we just assume that there's nut contamination in all chocolate -- it's a safer attitude than hoping for the best. The last time we let him have a safe chocolate that my sister-in-law had made, he vomited instantly. It turned out that she'd gotten the chocolate from the bulk food aisle, home of all cross-contamination possibilities. (Need I add that she's not allowed to feed him any more?)

So this time, I started with chocolate chunks from NoNuttin, guaranteed to be dairy- and nut-free. Plus he's been having the chunks on his S'Mores, so I know they're safe for him.

Here's my guide to making chocolate lollipops:

1. Go to Michael's to pick up some chocolate molds.
Breakdown of task: Let husband depart to get himself a coffee because of rough week with 2-year-old. Steel self for guiding two children through all the temptations of pretty things in the store. Enter store. Accept half-eaten banana from 2-year old and place into shopping basket for future disposal. Find a staffer and ask where the candy-making section is. Disengage 2-year-old from rack of pretty semi-precious stones and aim him towards the candy section. Since he falls short of goal, distracted by Dora and Diego display, send 4-year-old to retrieve 2-year-old while I try to find the chocolate lollipop molds.

2. Ask 4-year-old to select from vast array of chocolate molds.
Breakdown of task: 4-year-old must examine every single package. He does decide immediately that the happy face lollipops are for his little brother, but takes a while to decide which one is for him. Ends up selecting the hearts, which is appropriate for Valentine's day. Also, a delicate negotiation takes place because 4-year-old wants the short lollipop sticks for baby brother, and the long lollipop sticks for himself. Since I'm not buying two packages of 50 lollipop sticks, negotiation fails.

3. Take packages home. Melt chocolate chunks in pot on stove. (We don't have a double boiler, but a plain pot on low heat worked really well.)

4. Pour chocolate into molds, and insert lollipop sticks.
Breakdown of task: Have brilliant idea to drop cookie sprinkles into molds before pouring chocolate in. Watch 2- and 4-year-old dive into the sprinkles with their fingers, while you're pouring molten chocolate beside them. Clean up sprinkles from countertop, fingers and floor.

5. Take photo of grinning 4-year-old, with fresh haircut and chocolate in molds.
Breakdown of task: Put camera down, where it's immediately kidnapped by 2-year-old, who proceeds to take a dozen photos of the floor, the ceiling and everybody's feet and miscellaneous body parts. Try to remember to delete those photos before you download the camera.

6. Put lollipop trays into freezer to set.
Breakdown of task: Accidentally nudge tray against roof of freezer. Try to clean roof of freezer of all chocolate before it freezes there permanently.

7. After dinner, take lollipops out of molds and distribute to family. Enjoy!
Breakdown of task: Afterwards, wash chocolate from hands, mouth, and pretty much every body part you can imagine.

But we had fun, and afterwards, Andrew actually said thanks for having the brilliant idea of doing these lollipops. I figure I'll save the heart ones for Valentine's day -- the smiley face ones are all gone, as of tonight!

Burger King blunder

I've been horribly absent from my blog because I've got a huge confession to make.

I screwed up at Burger King.

This happened in December, just before Christmas. I had taken the day off work to take Andrew to his preschool's Christmas party. All of the preschool classes for the organization were invited, so there were about 100 kids in the room, so I was totally on guard for the entire experience.

They had Charlotte Diamond perform, and then there was a party with Christmas cookies and juice in the other room. I was prepared for that, too, and had Andrew's safe organic Oreos with me, and a boxed juice too, just to protect him from the shared juice pitchers and cups. (Okay, maybe that was a little too paranoid, but I was feeling a little shaky by that point.)

After that, I went with a few other moms from his preschool to Burger King, because it was on our way home, and because this one has a cool set of climbing tubes and slides, about two storeys high. The kids loved it, and had a blast screaming up, down and all over the equipment.

I'd looked over the Burger King menu earlier that month, and I knew that he could have two things off their menu: something with chicken, and the fries. So I ordered for us, and told the cashier that he has a dairy allergy, and that he wanted the chicken and fries. She rang up the crown nuggets and fries kids meal for us, and that's what he had for lunch.

He then went to his best friend's house for a playdate, and complained at the time of itchy eyes, something that we thought was because of their cat.

It wasn't.

Later that night, I checked the Burger King menu, and found out that I'd totally messed up. The crown chicken nuggets contain buttermilk. It's the chicken fries that are safe for him.

I called up that franchise and left a message for them about the allergic reaction, despite the fact that I had told the cashier that there was a dairy allergy. I have not heard back from them.

I haven't contacted the main Burger King office because they don't have an email address on their website. Yes, in this day and age, there is a major company that refuses to accept email correspondence. Unbelievable, isn't it?

Andrew woke up around 10 that night, scratching at himself all over. Since I finally knew what was going on (his cat reaction is usually just sneezing and runny nose, not full-body itches), I gave him a dose of Benadryl, and he was mostly fine by the next morning.

Of course, I wasn't. Despite having been on my guard all morning, I'd let it down at lunch, and my child paid for my mistake. I kicked myself all through Christmas.

What I've learned from this experience:

• Andrew's still got a dairy allergy, though it's not nearly as bad as it used to be (previous reactions included hives and vomiting)
• I should never let my guard down, even if I think I know what's safe. And never, EVER, trust a 16-year-old cashier at a fast food restaurant.
• Andrew loves hanging out with his best friend, and will endure any amount of itching to be with him!
  

What I hope happens:

• Burger King trains its staff to hand out ingredients lists the minute a customer mentions any kind of allergy.

Now that I've finally written this post to confess my sins, I'm going to print it out and mail it to Burger King's head office. Updates later, if anything ever comes of it.

Test results for Geoff

I took Geoff to the allergist this morning to get him scratch tested. The bad news: he got bumps for eggs, nuts and shellfish. The good news: the bumps were very small, barely there in fact. It wasn't as traumatic as when I took Andrew in for his test at this age, and everything hived up. The other good news: Geoff is negative for dairy and peanuts.

The allergist was kind and said that I'd absolutely done the right thing by going off dairy and nuts for the last couple of years while I was breastfeeding.

His peanut score could be meaningless, of course, since he's never been exposed to peanuts. So I'm going to keep him off all nuts for another couple of years and do a peanut food challenge later.

In the meantime, I can add dairy back into my diet -- yay!!!

Though that may not be great news: going back on dairy in the Christmas season means that I can have all those tasty Christmas desserts...

Allergic blogs roundup

It must be the holidays -- my google alerts has been really busy today, with tons of stories from parents who are dealing with their allergic kids, and others having really bad reactions. Here's a roundup of people who could probably use a virtual hug.

Martie's House: Food Allergies, Part 1 (and then read Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4).

The Allergic Kid: A World Full of Peanuts

Geektalk: Where did this come from?

Parton.com: peanut butter playground -- a cake maker gave them the peanut butter cake rather than the chocolate one that had been ordered. Her husband ended up being airlifted to the hospital!

Allergic kids stories

This post from the GNMParents blog tells some scary stories of kids' reactions in daycare and school: Food Allergies Are Serious Business.

I'm so glad that Andrew's preschool is nut-free, and that his teachers are so careful with him and the other kids who have serious allergies. I'm worried about transitioning to kindergarten next year, but I hear that it's a peanut-free school. I also know that there are several kids there now who have extremely severe nut and peanut allergies, so the teachers are vigilant and allergy-aware.

Thank goodness for parents who have gone before me.

Eating your curds and whey

This was just linked from another forum that I was reading, and I found it to be very useful:

Milk Allergy & Intolerance: http://www.allergysa.org/milk.htm

1

It covers the question of why Andrew is allergic to milk, but has scratch and RAST tested negative to cheese — there are two different proteins in milk, and he's only allergic to one of them.

5 ways to deal when you find out that your child has a major food allergy

Our world changed when Andrew was officially diagnosed with major food allergies, two years ago.

We already knew that he reacted to some foods with hives and vomiting, but we were able to sustain a certain amount of denial, and hope that he would outgrow the reactions — or that they weren't really reactions, that it was all in our minds. (He was 8 months old when he vomited and got hives from yogurt — he was our first kid, and we were able to continue in denial for quite a long time. I even kept on feeding him tastes of dairy every month, to see if he'd outgrown it yet. Yes, I was that stupid and uninformed.)

He was two when I finally got him to the allergist, and had the allergies we knew about (peanuts, dairy, cats) confirmed, and a few added (nuts, dustmites, mold, eggs). Even though the diagnosis only confirmed most of what we already knew, it was now official, and really hard to hear.

So, after a couple of years of living with Andrew's allergies, here are five tips for other parents who are dealing with this kind of news.

1. Go straight to acceptance
You will go through the stages of grief when your child gets diagnosed with a serious allergy. You can take the time to get through all the other ones, at a later date, but for the sake of your child's health, you need to go straight to acceptance, and process the rest of it later. You can't afford to hang out in denial any more. Rid your house of all of your child's allergens, and then add them in later when you start feeling more confident.

2. Get support
I've listed a lot of great allergy groups in the sidebar to this blog. Visit them all and find the ones that work for you. There are tons of amazing parents in all of the groups, but of course, each group has a slightly different dynamic. One of them will fit your parenting style the most. All of the groups are supportive, and encourage questions from new visitors. And all of the boards have extensive archives that you can look through if you're feeling too shy to post your question.

3. Get informed
I know more about allergies than my family doctor. And I know more about Andrew's allergic responses than his allergist does, since his allergist has only seen him once. I've done a ton of research, and read everything I could find. I know that egg hides in the oddest places, such as in vaccines (which is why he's not getting the flu vaccine). And I've learned the other names for his allergens — for example, "whey" and "casein" are alternate names for milk ingredients. But even I make mistakes and let him have things that make him vomit. And then I throw out that package and chalk it up as another lesson learned.

And part of getting informed is finding out what your child can safely eat. On the net, there are lots of lists like the one I made, of safe commercially-produced foods for Andrew. Make your own list of safe foods, so that you can give the list to family and friends who invite you over.

4. Learn to cook
It's healthier for you to cook your own food, so having an allergic child is almost a blessing in disguise. We've learned to make non-dairy versions of almost everything, and I know that what we eat has far fewer preservatives and chemicals than its storebought equivalent. Yes, it takes a lot longer to cook than to simply microwave or throw something in the oven, but it's better for my peace of mind.

5. Forgive yourself
You didn't give your child this allergy. It wasn't something you ate when you were pregnant, and it wasn't something you didn't eat or do when you were pregnant. Your child's allergy is not your fault. This was really hard for me. I did avoid peanuts when I was pregnant with Andrew, and he ended up with a huge peanut allergy. I also drank lots of milk, and he's allergic to that, too, so there's not much of a cause-effect pattern there. Someday, maybe he'll be the researcher who figures out why he was hit with so many allergies, but until then, all you can do is go easy on yourself, and deal with today.

allergy allerts via google

A couple of noteworthy posts came across my google news alerts today.

A little girl on Kenzie & Madi's bus has been picking on Makenzie since day one. Her name is Kendall, and she is in kindergarten, too. On Wednesday, she took a PBJ sandwich from her lunchbox and waved it in Kenzie's face, knowing very well about Makenzie's peanut allergy. Kenzie was so terrified that she was in tears. I didn't know 5-year-olds could be so evil.

From As the Story Goes.

This infuriates and frightens me. I know that little kids are mean, but this is bullying behaviour, and it's in kindergarten!


Also, as a followup to my Unexpected Peanut Exposure post:

Several years ago, a popular children’s book had a “scratch and sniff” feature. On one page was a picture of a jar of peanut butter that, when scratched, emitted the distinctive odor of peanut butter. ... the inhalation of peanut butter odor does not cause allergic reactions. Another study by Dr. Perry and colleagues from Johns Hopkins Medical Center analyzed the air around peanut butter, peanuts and peanuts being shelled, and found no detectable peanut protein in the air samples.

From a peanut allergy page that's new to me

Sabrina's Law documentary online

Global TV, a Canadian network, has put a documentary online called Sabrina's Law, the history of the allergic kids' legislation in Ontario.

My warning: if you're a parent of severely allergic kids, keep a box of tissues close by. It was hard to watch this and not think about losing my kids.

Unexpected peanut exposure

After reviewing a few great allergy books, I had to write about one that's not so friendly.

Andrew had a meltdown at storytime tonight because Tony had to take his book away from him.

The book was My Big Busy Body Activity Book. It's a great book, with photos of different body parts, and talks about your skeleton, muscles, skin, breathing, and all sorts of other body parts.
Well, when they got to the smelling page, there were 4 scratch-and-sniff envelopes, containing different scents: lemon, chocolate, spearmint, and peanut butter. Ack!

So Tony took the book away, and Andrew got really upset, because he'd been enjoying the book. He's in a phase where he really wants to know more about how his body works -- we just returned another "skeleton" book to the library last week.

The scent is on a piece of paper in a wee envelope on the page, so it's going into the garbage tonight. It doesn't actually even smell like anything any more (the book is about two years old), and I wonder if it ever actually had any peanut protein on the paper at all. I've seen lots of scratch-and-sniff books, including a firefighters one which had the smell of smoke (yucky!). And Andrew has a scratch-and-sniff Memory game. But this is the first time I've ever seen a peanut scent.

So, for you other peanut allergic parents out there -- would you have let your kid sniff the peanut-scented card?

(I am tempted to keep it to show to my severely allergic friend, to see if it makes her "spidey sense" tingle. She can smell an open jar of peanuts in the house, when she comes in the front door. If she's willing to sniff it, and can't detect anything, that might mean that there's no peanut protein on the card.)

An allergy-free Halloween

Alison over at Sure Foods Living just posted a great list on How to Have an Allergy Free Halloween.

I had to blog it here because it's an incredibly comprehensive list, including ideas on how to substitute toys for candy.

Andrew wants to be a Transformer for Halloween. And not just any easy Transformer -- he wants to be Swoop, a jet plane! I think we'll be painting and colouring cardboard boxes and paper for the next couple of weeks to get him into his costume!

Hopefully he'll be enjoying his costume so much that he won't care about what or how much candy he'll be getting. That, or we'll be "buying" his candy from him with money that he can then take to the store to buy himself a toy.

More super kids books about allergies

Nicole over at Allergicchild.com has published three fabulous allergy storybooks for kids:

• Allie the Allergic Elephant: A Children’s Story of Peanut Allergies
• Cody the Allergic Cow: A Children’s Story of Milk Allergies
• Chad the Allergic Chipmunk: A Children’s Story of Nut Allergies

She sent over review copies for Andrew, and I received them yesterday, and read them to him all in a row.

He really enjoyed them, and made a point of bringing them out for his playdate this morning, for our friend Ann, who's allergic to peanuts and nuts. She thought they were great, too. They certainly didn't have anything like this when she was a kid, and in fact, the cafeteria ladies simply didn't believe her when she told them she had a nut allergy.

I'm also going to send these books to preschool for the teachers to read at storytime. They're very attractive, and frame the allergy in a friendly way, while dealing with hazards like your friends wanting to share their un-safe snacks with you. (Plus, there are about 10 allergic kids in the preschool's various sessions this year, out of about 80 kids, so I think they'll welcome something that will also help lots of other kids.)

I think I'll eventually be donating them to Andrew's elementary school library. Just in our neighbourhood, I know of one other anaphylactic-to-peanuts kid, another who's severely allergic to mangos & pistachios, and her brother, who's allergic to dairy, and loves getting safe snacks at our house. So the books will eventually be used by tons of people. (So thanks, Nicole, for the review copies!)

If you've got a kid who's about to start school, I would absolutely recommend these books. (Or get your school librarian to order them in.) They're great for helping kids figure out how to deal with social situations where there will be food that's not safe for them. They're also great for reading to non-allergic kids who are friends of allergic kids, so that they know how to help their friends by not bringing un-safe snacks.

Pumpkin pie recipe -- dairy free, nut free

It's Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada, and it was our turn to host the big family dinner. I was glad to do it, despite the huge amount of work, because then we could make it as allergen-free as possible.

I love pumpkin pie, especially this time of year, but all the pumpkin pies that they sell in the grocery stores have dairy ingredients. So I went on a quest to make a good homemade pumpkin pie. Here's my recipe. It's dairy-free (uses rice dream), nut-free, but does contain eggs because Andrew has outgrown his egg allergy.

Crust: Pillsbury refrigerated pie crust. (Contains wheat ingredients, does not have soy or dairy.) The other pie crusts that we looked at in the freezer section contained milk ingredients, so weren't safe for Andrew. And I'm not confident enough to make my own crusts, plus Geoff is at a clingy stage, so I can't spend too much time in the kitchen.

The pumpkin filling was based on the pumpkin pie recipe from the Better Homes & Gardens New Cookbook, and I've copied it below.

16 ounce can pumpkin (I used a 14 ounce can of organic pumpkin)
2/3 cup sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg (and I did look it up, and nutmeg is not a nut)
3 slightly beaten eggs
2/3 cup rice milk (substituted for the original 2/3 cup evaporated milk and 1/2 cup milk)

1. Put the pie crust into a pie dish. Put into oven to bake for 10 minutes or so, just to brown the crust.

2. Combine pumpkin, sugar, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg. Add eggs. Beat until just combined. Gradually stir in rice milk.

3. Pour filling into pie crust.

4. Bake in 375 degree oven for 30-40 minutes. (The original recipe says 50 minutes or until a knife inserted near the center comes out clean. That was about 35 minutes for me, but my oven runs hot.) If you're worried about over-browning the crust, cover the edge of the pie with foil for the first 25 minutes of the baking time.

5. Cool on a wire rack. Refrigerate within 2 hours, cover for longer storage.

This was the tastiest dairy-free pumpkin pie that I've managed to make, and I'll definitely be doing more of these! The last 3-4 pumpkin pies I've tried to make have all been too runny or tasted a little bit "off.")

Hopefully this will help out some of you in time for the US Thanksgiving weekend!

I'm stoked

I've added another allergic mom's blog to my sidebar: Allergy Free in Loudoun. She's doing a great job of keeping on top of what's happening with allergies in the news -- give her a visit!

Also, I'm riding a great high after tonight's knit night. I helped out another knitter with a tough pattern, and then an hour later, we got to talking about allergies. Well, it turns out that her son was allergic to the entire world when he was a kid -- dairy, peanuts, dustmites, baby tylenol, the works. She even used to wash down the walls every night just to minimize his exposure to dustmites.

And now, as an adult, he's not allergic to anything at all. (She's probably in her 50s or 60s, so I imagine that her son is probably in his 30s.)

Wow.

I have nightmares all the time about Andrew's future, especially as he starts school next year and begins to live his own life. Her story just gives me so much hope.

And there are so many more options for Andrew than her son had. She used to give him cereal with water, because there was no such thing as rice milk back then. And nothing was labelled as it is today, so it would have been a nightmare to figure out what was safe for him to eat. And she didn't have nearly as huge a network as exists now, to help with ideas on what our kids might be willing to eat.

Allergies in BC Schools

Anaphylaxis Canada sent out this press release today.

We are pleased to announce that British Columbia's Education Minister Shirley Bond has signed a ministerial order that has the force of law, to provide a rapid response to ensure schools are prepared to deal with an emergency situation involving a student with a life-threatening allergy.

To read the full contents of the press release issued on September 10, go to:
http://www2.news.gov.bc.ca/news_releases_2005-2009/2007EDU0118-001100.pdf

I'm delighted that this is happening. Andrew starts kindergarten next September, so this will give us time to work with the school to make sure it's safe for him.

Kids with allergies, interviewed

I followed a circuitous path to find this video.



Watch it and weep, if you're a parent of child with food allergies. The kids in this video are so sweet, and so brave, shouldering the burden of exclusion and knowing that they risk their lives when they go out in public.

Found via She She's post on her son's nut allergy.

__________________
Edited to add:
Mary asked me how to save this for showing to school teachers and administrators. Here's my reply to her.

Easy ... go to Savetube at
http://www.savetube.com/

and type in the URL for the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzyLv2IKoGA

The instructions for how to view it are here:
http://www.savetube.com/tutorial.htm
(If Savetube doesn't work for you, here are some other tips.)

After you have the .flv file, google "flv converter" and you'll find some free software to convert the file from the .flv format to an avi file.

The credits for this video on youtube read:
A film of food allergic children produced for general awareness which premiered at the Food Allergy Initiative Northwest inaugural benefit dinner in May 2007.
www.faiusa.org

Life's Little Moments blog

Briana left me a comment on my allergy bracelets post, and I found her Life's Little Moments blog and added it to my blogroll.

Hi Briana! It's nice to "meet" you.

Temporary Tattoos as medic alert

One of the major search terms that brings people to this blog is "allergy bracelets", probably because I reviewed the silicone bracelets from Australia as one of my first posts. (Andrew still loves them, by the way, and they've been worn through months of abuse, baths, sunscreen, and heavy play, and they're still looking new.)

Anyways, this is a pretty cool product -- customizable temporary "tottoos" with "Allergic to peanuts" and your phone number as the text. The price tag is $28.95, which seems kinda high to me, but I'd think about it if he wasn't so attached to his current bracelets. And you do get 25 of them, which is a bit more than $1 per application. (Link found on Parent Hacks, which is a pretty cool site.)

But these would probably be good for Geoff, who's an escape artist and not nearly as verbal as Andrew. I haven't even blogged about this incident yet because it was pretty scary, but Geoff decided to take a "self-guided tour" of Science World about a month ago.

I'd taken the kids there for a fun morning. Well, Andrew spilled his fries when we were going to watch the stage show, and while I was cleaning them up, Geoff climbed up the stairs to the second floor, and went on a tour of a couple of different galleries. I found a staff member who radioed everyone while I was running around all the corners of the first floor. He got a call back a few minutes later — volunteers had found Geoff laughing at one of the exhibits, not even missing me in the slightest. When I got to him, he'd been corralled by the volunteers and was interacting with them happily.

Yeah, he's a pretty self-confident little kid who doesn't need me at all. It's a total plug for attachment parenting, but sometimes I do wish that it was easier to keep track of where he is, especially in a crowded place.

More allergy blogs

Wow, I'm finding more and more allergy blogs every day! Two more are now in my sidebar: Rational Jenn and every day with food allergies.

I recognize my kids in all of Purplemommy's stories, at every day with food allergies. And I agreed with Rational Jenn's anger in her post on "The Right to a Reese's".

And not added to the sidebar, because she doesn't regularly blog about allergies, is The Legal Soapbox. But I would encourage you to read her article on "Nuts and kinders", which just came out this week.

Also check out Kim's post on "Don't Kill the Allergy Mom," about her experiences being that mom.