Having a child with multiple food allergies can sometimes be a bit challenging when attending events with food present.\u00a0 Thankfully, we have an Epi-pen in the event that we need to use it.\u00a0 Hopefully, it will never have to be used!\u00a0 Reading labels has become part of my life.\u00a0 A couple of things that I learned from reading labels is: One, how many different\u00a0variants there are for some foods, milk being one example.\u00a0 Two, apples are a common allergen and how much\u00a0they are used as fillers for juices and many baby & toddler foods.\u00a0 Three, how much you are limited when you need\u00a0to avoid abcdef&g and most everything has at least one of the items in them.<\/p>\n
At a former church that we attended, there was a family that came for about a month or two.\u00a0 They had\u00a0four girls and all four had severe food allergies.\u00a0 Each of them had to carry an epi-pen.\u00a0\u00a0I remember a few of the allergens were wheat, dairy, soy, and peanuts but their list of allergens\u00a0was much longer than those four things.\u00a0 The list of foods that were safe for them to\u00a0eat was very small and the mom once said it was quicker to\u00a0name what they can\u00a0eat than the list of their\u00a0allergens.\u00a0 They couldn’t have any of the allergens in the house because\u00a0even coming into contact with a drop of an allergen for a couple of the girls would send them into\u00a0anaphylaxis and\u00a0a lengthy hospital stay.\u00a0 About two to three\u00a0years later when I started to have to read labels I got a tiny glimpse into what that mother lives through on a daily basis.\u00a0 Sometimes, I think about this family and wonder how they are doing.<\/p>\n
My kids attend Awanas at my mom’s church and this week is Vacation Bible School at the church.\u00a0 One of my child’s Awana teachers always brings a safe food for them to eat for snack during the Awana year.\u00a0 This week one of the workers in the kitchen has made sure that my child has safe foods to eat and has approached me daily to make sure that the snacks\u00a0are okay to give him.\u00a0 They are making some special snacks later on in the week and\u00a0she\u00a0wanted to make sure\u00a0that there is\u00a0one that is safe for him to eat and was willing to buy ingredients to make it safe for him to eat.<\/p>\n
From the bottom of my heart thank you to these two ladies!\u00a0 It means more than you know that there are people who care enough for our child who cannot eat some of the same foods as others!<\/p>\n
Have a very blessed rest of the week!<\/p>\n\n