I often, and when I say often, it’s more daily/weekly than occasionally, think of how hard things must have been in the past, and how some people’s strength and courage has made everything better for us.
When the girls were really little it was far harder to buy suitable products and labels weren’t as thorough as now, but thankfully we generally had and have trustworthy labels on packaged items. But freshly made items were a real no go – without seeing the ingredients, how can you make safe informed choices? Whilst it was so sadly born out of the upmost tragedy of losing Natasha, Nadim, Tanya and Alex Ednan-Laperouse have done so much more than i could ever thank them for to make life better for other allergy sufferers. Their strength, drive and determination is utterly incredible, and really when people can make such good from such sadness and personal tragedy, it is a true reflection of what is incredible about humanity.
Whenever i stop and think about what happened to Natasha, and it really does come to mind on a frequent basis, i feel a deep chill inside thinking about what they went through, how helpless they must have felt, how things could so easily have been different. As an allergy family, i’m sure i’m not alone in having a profound fear lurking in the corner of my mind.
Whenever there is a near miss, a close call, whatever you want to call it, that fear comes to the foreground and the reality of allergies hits home. Recently we had an incident when reading the label isn’t always enough and that made me sit up and think…
If you follow any of my pages such as WordPress, Instagram or Facebook you’ll know we’re not unfamiliar with coping with allergies. It’s been a journey of 20 years since Big S was a baby that our lives have been curated by food and what is or isn’t safe. So always reading the label is second nature and chances are not taken. Over the years I’ve become embroiled in many conversations about may contains- for us they’ve always been a no go, too many incidents have happened, calls have been too close. It’s generally not a risk we’re willing to take. so it’s fair to say we’re pretty careful and cautious, but still occasional mistakes and mishaps can occur,
Now Big S is only allergic to milk (she grew out of her egg allergy years ago), and she’s very careful and as a young adult, she’s learnt her own way to cope with having allergies. Yes, there may be times when she isn’t as careful to the degree i’d like – I am after all her mum and the thought of any horrific potential outcome terrifies me, so maybe I’ve always gone to extreme lengths of taking no chances. Anyway, as I say she’s very careful and mature in her approach so this incident was a real shock and an eye opener.
So Big S was coming home from Uni for Christmas and it’s a long train journey so she got some food from a favourite and well trusted cafe. One was a pot of yoghurt and granola. On the menu this is shown as coconut yoghurt that’s vegan, and the pot had a label which said ‘allergens: nuts’ so it looked all good. (The lack of actual ingredients is a little worrying to me, but to Big S all looked fine). As it happened, and luck was on our side, they’d run out of spoons and the food trolley on the train didn’t have any either, so she waited until she got home to eat the yoghurt pot. Thank goodness for that, is all I can say.
We’d just got home from the station and I was on a work Teams call when I got a message ‘please come quick I’m having a bad allergic reaction’ – oh my goodness, it was awful, even her eyelids were swollen, itchy hives, very sick. Luckily no mouth swelling or difficulty breathing so we didn’t use an epipen. But it was a big nasty reaction and would have been hard to handle should she have been on her own on the train. I contacted the cafe and it turned out there was a mislabelling and it was actually Greek yoghurt.
I will not name and shame the premises involved as they’ve reacted really well and it was human error, but it makes you think doesn’t it? Was this how it was before the Natasha Allergy Research Foundation worked so hard to change the law and ensure establishments declare all ingredients, if so, eating anything out of the home must have been like entering the wild west.
I don’t know what the message is really, I’m not out to just scare people but it did make us sit up and think. What could she have done instead- maybe asked about the ingredients but it looked safe and in fact the menu doesn’t even have any dairy yoghurt items. I guess it’s one of the occasions when it’s brought home to you how difficult it is to have allergies, how you can never let fully your guard down. When comedians or films make jokes at the expense of people with allergies, they really can’t appreciate the little cloud of worries, anxieties and fears that we as allergy families always carry around. It’s not funny, it’s no laughing matter, the potential is very scary….
But most of all, I cannot ever fully express how grateful to all those who campaign for people with allergies, how so many work tirelessly so that everyday life is just a tiny bit easier. If you don’t already please consider supporting and shouting about our allergy advocates; Natasha Allergy Research Foundation, Anaphylaxis UK, Allergy UK to name but a few.
Together we are stronger, we can all be safer; so to everyone who advocates for people with allergies, be it the charities, the Doctors, nurses and researchers, the mum’s on a mission, the familes, and anyone with allergies, thank you all x
