Please Support!

Please consider contacting members of this committee:

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/committee.xpd?id=SSHR

and asking them to support S. 1884: School Access to Emergency Epinephrine Act. This bill would allow schools to have a supply of epinephrine and administer it to any student believed to be having an anaphylactic reaction. If Ammaria Johnson's school had this policy, she would likely have lived. Let's get this bill passed so there are no more Ammarias.

Is this what it takes?

I've thought for years that Epipens should be in first aid kits. Not in every dinky little first aid kit, but in the big ones at schools and day camps and scout camping facilities and probably also on airplanes, in airports and bus stations...this list could get pretty long. Reading this column from Margaret Carlson, I can't help thinking, is this what it takes? Or will there be more little girls and boys who die before major organizations are allowed to have and administer Epipens to anyone who's life is threatened?

Food Allergies and Dating?!?

I just watched a video from Living Without about food allergies and dating. It's funny how adding food allergies to the mix means that I'm more worried about my 9 year old dating than my teenager, even though it's years away for Sophie. Food allergies sure put a weird spin on life.

Preventing Food Allergies

I just read another article about preventing food allergies. Over the past 9+ years, I have read hundreds of such articles. The theories about prevention used to focus on abstaining from allergenic foods at the end of pregnancy and during breastfeeding, and now the opposite advice is given. In fact, current guidelines recommend that parents should not wait too long to feed their babies solid foods, because in theory waiting too long could contribute to food allergy development. It's all very interesting. But to me, it's kind of irrelevant.

Irrelevant? Really? Yes, actually. Because my reality is that Sophie has food allergies already. So it's not really about preventing food allergies for us. For our family, the focus is preventing allergic reactions. Obviously, I support the research. I would love to see a day when babies never go through what Sophie did. I would love to find cures. But if I think about what I could have done different, the should'ves and could'ves, it will make me crazy with guilt. In order to live with myself, I have to believe that food allergies sometimes just happen, and that Sophie just got unlucky on this one.

I will donate money to find a cure. I will support research about causes, and even read about it occasionally. But my focus is to keep Sophie safe. My job is to make sure that she has the support necessary at school. My calling is to make her life comfortable and happy at home and in social settings, despite the gulf between what her body will accept and what everyone else serves and eats. Sophie came to our family with food allergies, fresh from heaven. And I will make sure she doesn't go back too soon.