The Ring Theory of Kvetching

by Kelley Lindberg


In a wonderful little opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times earlier this month, Susan Silk and Barry Goldman outline a really simple way to know when and to whom you can whine about a medical problem. (“How Not to Say the Wrong Thing,” LATimes.com, April 7, 2013.)

The key is to think of concentric circles – with the actual sick person (or the “aggrieved or afflicted” person) in the center, and everyone else falling into outer layers, starting with the closest person (spouse, for example) in the ring closest to the center, and moving out until the very outer rim, which is occupied by “lookie lous.”

Then, wherever you are in the rings, you can only offer “comfort in” to people closer to the center than you, and “dump out” to people in circles further out than you.

In other words, the closer you are to the center, the more right you have to complain, but only to people farther out than you. The farther out you go, the less right you have to complain, and the more people there are closer to the problem than you who could use your comfort, not your comparisons, complaints, or advice.

Nifty! Their article has a graphic and does a better job of explaining it than I do. It’s a great reminder to keep things in perspective, first and foremost. And it helps us remember that unless we’re in the bulls-eye at the center of the circle, it’s simply not all about us.

And if we ARE in the bulls-eye, it’s okay to fall apart, at least for a little while. We’ve got lots of people in the circles surrounding us who can support us, comfort us, and help us through it.

 

The Bright Light of Friendship

by Kelley Lindberg


The Italian Renaissance artist Giotto di Bondone had it figured out when he said, “The sincere friends of this world are as ship lights in the stormiest of nights.”

My son started junior high this year, and with that milestone, I’m discovering that I continue to have to learn ways to let go. But I was recently reminded, once again, that just because I can’t always be there to solve problems for him, smooth the way, and anticipate obstacles doesn’t mean he’s on his own.

A couple of weeks ago, he attended his very first dance at the junior high school – a Halloween dance. As if it’s not weird enough seeing your child go to his first dance, I also had to contend with the idea that there would be food there. But I felt a little better about that this time because one of his friends had stepped in to keep him (and other allergic kids) safe.

Since it was a Halloween dance, the student council had planned a creepy activity where you stick your hand in a box labeled “eyeballs” or “brains” or “guts” and gross each other out. The eyeballs are really grapes, the guts are really cooked spaghetti, etc.

But here’s where the value of friendship comes in: one of the girls on the student council has been really good friends with my son (and with his allergic friend) since preschool. So during one of the planning meetings for the dance, she brought up the question of kids in the junior high with food allergies and suggested they make the creepy-feely exhibit allergy-safe.

The teacher and council agreed, a quick email was sent to one of the food-allergic parents for suggestions, and voila! We were involved in the planning and shopping and we could help make the dance allergy-safe. (And it turned out to be a truly awesome Halloween dance!)

I’ve often said that today’s kids are far more allergy-aware and allergy-accepting than grownups. This generation of kids is growing up with food-allergic classmates and teammates, where in my generation, food allergies were all but unheard-of. That makes us grown-ups less inclined to remember about food allergies than our kids, who are around them all the time.

So as my son races head-long into his rebellious teenage years, it’s comforting to know that some of his fellow teenage rebels will also be friends who care enough to keep an eye out for hazards.

Thanks, B, for being there for your allergic friends, and for keeping those lights burning in a stormy sea.

Friends In Need, Friends Indeed

by Kelley Lindberg


About a week ago, my friend Kim and I chaperoned our sons’ sixth grade field trip. Her son is my son’s best friend (those of you who read this blog regularly know all about this dynamic duo of food-allergic buddies). My son is allergic to nuts and peanuts, while her son is allergic to tree nuts, peanuts, milk, eggs, seafood, and a few other things.

Now, the great thing about having 12-year-old kids is that they’re getting old enough to self-manage a lot of the food allergy issues that scare us mothers. They can read labels, they can tell their friends about their allergies, they can skip the cupcakes at birthday parties without a second thought, and they can notice things like Reese’s wrappers on the seat of the school bus and avoid them. Sure, they’re still boys, and that implies a lot of … well, you know, those “what were you thinking” moments (and we know those will get a lot more common as they become full-fledged teenagers). But for the most part, we’ve been happy with how they’re slowly learning to be responsible for their own health.

But Kim and I still volunteer to chaperone field trips, just so we can be close if something happens. (Once a paranoid mom, always a paranoid mom.)

Anyway, at the end of this particular field trip, the facility we were visiting surprised us all with full-sized candy bars for all 100 kids. Exciting for the kids, momentary panic for me and Kim.

So here’s what happened. From the candy bars offered, my son selected the one that he knew was nut-free (the plain Hershey’s bar), and so did his best friend. The best friend can’t eat the Hershey’s bar, but he grabbed one anyway so he could give it to my son. My son then promptly handed him the Twizzler that he received earlier for answering a question correctly. Happy trade.

But that’s not the end of the story. 100 kids piled onto two school buses, armed with Reese’s, Almond Hershey’s, Babe Ruths, and all sorts of other nut-loaded candy. One of the teachers came up to me, apologizing for the candy, but it was too late – the kids were already ripping into them. I knew that my son would be sitting with his buddy, and that Kim was with them, so I squashed my worries and trusted her to keep them safe. (I was in charge of a different group of kids, so I wasn’t sitting with my own son. Go figure.)

When we got back to the school, Kim came off the bus with a huge grin on her face. I asked her if the boys were okay, and she said they were better than okay. When they got on the bus, my son, Kim’s son, and another of their good friends who is aware of the 2 boys’ allergies all shared a single seat, and they put Kim’s son (who has the most allergies) in the middle, so that he was shielded from everyone else. Then my son and the third friend just tucked their candy bars in their pockets, refusing to eat them until they got home.

And all of this happened without Kim saying a word. All three boys just matter-of-factly leaped into action to keep the two allergic ones safe. No questions, no discussion, no help from the worried moms. They simply handled it.

Moral of the story? I see two:

1. Managing food allergies really does get easier for parents as our children get older.

2. Nothing beats good friends.

I’ve often written about my son’s circle of friends and how easily they accept his allergies and how hard they work to protect him. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of writing about how grateful I am for these kinds of friends.

My hope is that every food-allergic kid (and adult) out there finds friends like these. They certainly make the world a better, safer, and “friendlier” place for all of us. And if you are one of those friends, thank you from the bottom of our hearts!

Food-Allergy-Related Things I’m Thankful For

by Kelley Lindberg


As Thanksgiving approaches, it seemed like a good time to recall all the things I’m especially grateful for. And while having food allergies may make a traditional Thanksgiving feast a little problematic, it shouldn’t keep us from remembering that in many ways, we still have so much to be thankful for. Here’s my Top Ten List for this year.

1. Rice milk and egg replacers.
2. The Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act (FALCPA), which became effective January 1, 2006, and required manufacturers in the United States to label all foods containing the top 8 food allergens, and to declare the allergen in plain language. This single act has made living with food allergies so much easier.
3. The Utah Food Allergy Network (UFAN), the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network (FAAN), Kids with Food Allergies, the Food Allergy Initiative, and other organizations that provide the information, resources, recipes, and support that make our lives a little bit easier.
4. Manufacturers who are beginning to recognize that food-allergic customers are a sizeable force and are making an effort to produce allergy-friendly products.
5. My son’s best friends, who have stuck by him all these years and make sure he always has someone safe to sit by at lunch.
6. Restaurants and wait staff who actually care and make an effort to keep unsafe allergens out of our food.
7. Teachers who are willing to modify their curricula to eliminate food projects or replace them with safe substitutions, who call me when they need food items for classroom projects, and who welcome me on field trips and at parties to “keep an eye on things.”
8. SelectWisely.com, who makes those great translation cards for food allergens, which make it possible for me to travel with my son more confidently.
9. That we live now, when awareness is blossoming and making it more manageable to live with food allergies than it was even a decade ago.
10. Good friends who go out of their way to make their homes and parties safe, who have helped me develop recipes over the years, who keep their eyes open for new allergy-friendly products, and who offer a shoulder to lean on whenever I need it.

And a bonus thank you to all of you who read my blog each week, share your experiences, and reach out to make this a better world for people with food allergies everywhere. Happy Thanksgiving!

A 4th Grader’s First-Hand Account of a Food Allergy Reaction

by Kelley Lindberg


Last year, my son’s best friend (who was ten years old at the time) had a reaction to some cheese hidden in a burrito that landed him in the doctor’s office and took him several days to recover from. Last week, the boy’s mom was going through his school notebook from last year, and she stumbled across an essay he’d written that she’d never known about.

In class during that time, the fourth graders all read a book about Jackie Robinson, the African-American baseball player, and how he overcame barriers to achieve his own success. The kids were supposed to write an essay about a barrier they’d overcome, so this boy wrote about his reaction.

His mom asked him if he would like to show it to me. She explained that it might help other kids and parents understand what it feels like to go through a severe allergic reaction to food. He said sure, and he gave it to me.

So this week, I’m happy to share this boy’s first-hand story of what it feels like to have an allergic reaction to food. Thanks, J!

“Barrier," by J.

My severe food allergies acted up and stopped me from going to school. But then I drank the DISGUSTING steroids and I was better the next day, but felt EXHAUSTED! I didn’t feel like going to sleep. My body had a fight for its life and it was tired. I spent a few days on the couch, a few weeks of tiredness, even when I went to school. I felt tired, not just because school is boring! (Except for P.E. and recess.)

I overcame it by taking the steroids and resting. I felt tired but couldn’t go to sleep. So I just lay there and rested and tried to go to sleep a few times, but couldn’t. I actually wanted to go to sleep and get some rest. I also wanted to play with my little sister.

I had to have courage that I would be o.k. If anybody teased me about them, I would just hold in my anger just like Jackie Robinson did.

Future Me Says It’s Going to Be Okay

by Kelley Lindberg


2009 is winding down. For that matter, so is the decade.

It’s hard to believe that at the beginning of this decade (and century, and millennium, by the way), I was still feeling like a brand-new mom. My son was a year old, but I was still discovering a million inadequacies in my mothering skills – he was already well-established as the Human Whirlwind, he’d added walking to his repertoire of things that could propel him into disaster, and as the only mid-thirties mom I knew, I was feeling wholly isolated and incompetent.

And just think… I was still about four months away from discovering that he was allergic to peanuts and tree nuts. As overwhelmed as I already was, I was completely unaware that in a few months my “overwhelminess” was going to double.

Whew.

If I could go back in a time machine and sit myself down for a little heart-to-heart chat (okay, we wouldn’t have been able to sit – one of us would have been up walking in circles with him in our arms, or chasing along behind him trying to keep him out of trouble), there are a lot of things I would tell that younger me.

The most important thing I’d say, though, would be that it would all turn out okay eventually. That’s the thing I most needed to hear then, because it was the thing I least believed.

I needed to hear that, as stubborn as he was, he would never surrender to the concept of turning around to crawl down stairs backwards, but that eventually his little legs would be long enough that he could walk down steps forwards without falling. And that would be okay.

I needed to hear that eventually he would sleep all night long, and in his own bed.

I needed to hear that he would always be quickly frustrated, but that eventually he would find ways to solve problems without hitting someone else (at least most of the time).

I needed to hear that I would find wonderful friends who would support me, encourage me, understand me, commiserate with me, and celebrate with me.

I needed to hear that the bundle of energy that seemed so destructive and taxing back then would evolve into a highly intelligent, highly enthusiastic, highly entertaining kid who would make me laugh far more than he would make me growl. Eventually.

And I needed to hear that living with food allergies would add a layer of challenge to our lives, but it certainly wasn’t impossible, and that it would get easier as he got older.

So now he’s eleven years old, I’m a little older and wiser (okay, a lot older and only a little wiser), and a new decade is starting again. This new decade will include his teenage years, dating, driver’s education, high school graduation, and even the beginnings of college, all of it made more complicated by his food allergies.

I have to admit, it looks awfully daunting from this point of view. So I’m going to hope that somewhere in the future, there’s an older me looking back, wishing she could tell me now that it will all turn out okay.

Eventually.

Here’s to you, Future Me. Thanks for the encouragement. I’m going to need it.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Allergy-Safe Camping

Two weekends ago, I was dirty, sunburned, covered in eau de bug spray that only marginally worked, bathed in wood smoke, blinking ash out of my eyes, and engaged in competitive mosquito-slapping.

It was great! I was, of course, camping.

It was our second annual camping trip with a group of close friends – five families, for a total of ten kids and ten grown-ups. The kids range in age from 4 to almost 11, and they’ve all grown up together, so they’re a noisy, close-knit bunch that play at full-tilt from the time they rise until they begin to drop off around the campfire as the moon gleams and the parents laugh at old stories.

We spent two nights by a picturesque lake under towering pines on the north slope of the Uintas. The days were blue-sky gorgeous, and the nights were star-spangled and frosty cold. Camping in Utah is a joy, made better when you can split the cooking duties with other people.

We arrived Friday afternoon and left Sunday mid-day, so that meant we had five meals to deal with. After some complex mathematical calculations during our planning, we discovered that five meals divided by five families equals… let’s see, one meal per family, right? Yep. We’re purty smart.

So each family planned and prepared a single meal for the whole gang of twenty, and it made everyone’s weekend that much easier.

Because we have two allergic kids in the bunch, we make sure all meals and snacks are safe for them. The last thing we want is a life-threatening food reaction when we’re hours from the nearest hospital, so we simply ban all of their allergens from the entire campsite. All food the five families bring is free of milk, eggs, nuts, peanuts, and seafood.

Too restrictive? Not hardly. We ate like royalty!

Friday night was Susan’s fantastic kalua pork, rice, and salad, followed by a cherry chocolate birthday cake that was sinfully good.

Saturday morning was Necia’s fruit and cinnamon rolls on a stick, grilled over the open fire, along with bacon and breakfast cookies. When is breakfast ever that fun?

Lunch was a feast of Lorie’s delectable chicken salad and a smorgasbord of sandwich fixins on a variety of breads and tortillas.

For supper, Kim’s hobo dinners of beef, potatoes, green beans, and carrots all roasted in foil pouches over the campfire were delicious and really hit the spot after a hard day of fishing and Frisbee. And the roasted corn-on-the-cob was a first-of-the-season treat. Garlic bread was the finishing touch.

Sunday’s breakfast was my assignment, so I brought a variety of muffins – blueberry, chocolate chip, banana, and carrot cake – which I’d baked a few days earlier and frozen so they’d survive the trip. I also provided apple slices with Sunbutter for dipping.

All of those meals were completely free of milk, eggs, nuts, and seafood, but anyone who might have joined us would have never guessed. It was all delicious and nutritious, and there was plenty of it!

This group of friends has been close for seven or eight years now, so we’ve had a long time to get used to dealing with allergies and a long time to find delicious recipes. Each time we get together, it becomes a game for us moms to try out new concoctions. It’s fun, and nine times out of ten, it’s successful. (My chocolate chip muffins were a little too dense, but my carrot cake was a hit!)

Having food allergies hasn’t meant giving up on parties and get-togethers. It has meant we’ve come to appreciate this circle of friends (and more) who accept food allergies as a normal part of life, and who are infinitely willing to change their own cooking and eating habits for us. That is TRUE friendship.

We’re already planning next year’s camping trip, and I’m already coming up with some new muffin recipes to try. It’s the least I can do to thank these wonderful friends.

Friendly Faces in the Food Fight

Last week, we had our April meeting of the Davis County chapter of UFAN. It was great – six new members joined us!

The most amazing transformation takes place at meetings like this. Often, when we first arrive, we come feeling like we’re the only ones dealing with food allergies. We’ve had a rough week, perhaps. Maybe we’ve had a conflict with an in-law, a teacher, a stranger, or a neighbor. We’ve dealt with a reaction. We’ve had to explain for the umpteenth time why our kid can’t have a piece of that birthday cake, and no, we’re not just overly protective. We’ve read approximately eighteen thousand labels, give or take a million, and we’ve heard another scary story about finding food allergens in unexpected places. (“What do you mean, my new exfoliating soap uses almond shells as the abrasive grit?!”) We’ve tried to explain to yet another 16-year-old waiter that there can be absolutely no cross-contamination with nuts in our kid’s meal.

We’re tired of feeling like Don Quixote tilting at windmills all day long. Talk about feeling isolated.

Then we walk into a meeting like a UFAN chapter meeting, or we run into another mom at a soccer game whose kid is allergic, or we stumble across another parent’s blog, and suddenly we connect! There’s someone else who’s dealing with this! There is someone else to nod and say, “Yeah, don’t you hate that.” Someone else who says, “Sure, I’ve got a great birthday cake recipe.” Someone else who suggests, “Have you tried telling your neighbors this?”

We all need a friendly shoulder sometimes. I’m blessed with many good, dear, wonderful friends who’ve been with me for years and are as committed to keeping my son safe as I am. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have tough days when that brick wall has left a really big imprint on my forehead. So a friendly face is always a welcome relief.

I’m so glad we have our Davis County chapter meetings, where we know we can see a bunch of friendly faces every month. At our meeting this month, we shared our own stories and struggles, as well as our successes and ideas. We learned, and commiserated, and cheered each other on. We even compiled a list of local restaurants where we’ve had some good experiences ordering food that accommodates our allergies (which I will give to Kay to post on our UFAN website)! I left the meeting re-energized and ready to fight the weekly battles again. Thank you to everyone who came!

Bring on those windmills!

Warming Up January Days

You know the saying:

Thirty days have September,
April, June, and November.
All the rest have 31,
Except for January and February…

Which have 80.

Ah, winter. January is only a week old, and yet it feels like it’s been here for ages. How can a winter day drag on forever, but still be so short it’s dark before you get anything done? Just my luck. I’m always wishing for longer days, 8-day weeks, and 6-week months, but I’d prefer them to be of the warmer, brighter variety.

Oh well. Beggars can’t be choosers, I suppose. (Although I’m going to work on making my begging more specific.)

Still, it’s nice to get a new year underway, even if it does have the poor graces to begin with January.

We began our new year by going to a New Year’s Eve party at a dear friend’s house. Because we all take our kids, we celebrate the new year on New York City time, set off firecrackers in the snow at 10:00 pm, and go home to drop into bed. We’re such party animals.

Anyway, the party was a “dessert party,” so each family brought a sweet treat to snack on while we waited for the ball to drop (or the kids to explode, whichever came first). This was mostly a different group of friends than those who had the Christmas party in December, but the same two kids with food allergies were invited (my son and his best friend). So for the 24 hours before the party, I received phone calls asking, “Can I read you the ingredients label on this? I want to make sure what I’m bringing is safe.”

Again, I am overwhelmed by the generosity, caring, and consideration of friends. They don’t grumble. They don’t make a big issue out of it. They don’t ignore the allergies and bring a nut roll anyway. They thumb through recipes, ask about substitutions, and try out new combinations. They view it as a chance to experiment, rather than a cramp in their style. They can’t even imagine having a party where the two boys would be at risk. To them, it seems to be just a tangible way for them to express their friendship with us.

Now that I think about it, with friends like that, even January days seem warmer.

Soups That Warm the Heart

Friday night we got together with some friends for an annual soup pot-luck holiday party. For the five families involved, getting together for a holiday party has been a tradition for many years. The soup part of the tradition is a more recent development, but it’s turned into a great idea.

There’s nothing like a cold, snowy night (which Friday was) to make the thought of five steaming crock-pots full of hot, delicious soups and stews all the more enticing.

In this group of friends we have to accommodate two kids with allergies (nuts, peanuts, milk, egg, seafood), one family that prefers vegetarianism (although they do make exceptions), at least a couple of husbands who thrive on red meat, and one diabetic (me). Sounds complicated. But as the years go on, it becomes easier and easier to roll them all into your recipe criteria.

At Friday’s party, I think we may have had the best soups to date! There was a delicious taco soup, a bean chili, a peasant-style minestrone chock full of veggies, and a steak-and-potato soup. I made a Rustic White Bean Soup made of navy beans, turkey sausage, broth, and spinach (from Diabetic Dinners in a Dash by Art Ginsberg – you mash half the navy beans, which gives the soup a creamier texture without the cream). Everything was wonderful, and everyone tried at least a small serving of each soup (some more than once). We added some dinner rolls that were milk- and egg-free, a punch for the kids made of equal parts of Cran-apple juice and ginger ale, Lorie's fabulous milk- and egg-free chocolate cupcakes, and voila! We even got the kids to stop racing around the house long enough to eat. It was that good.

Accommodating allergies (and other dietary restrictions) is extremely challenging in the beginning. We all know that. But over time, you find friends and family members who are willing to explore new options because they care enough about you to make the effort. Between you, you begin to experiment and discover new recipes, good substitutions, and new ways to prepare old favorites that make them safe. Then one day you look around and realize you’ve got a safe environment for your child where before you saw only a minefield of potential disasters.

Our annual holiday get-together is a safe environment where our kids know they are welcome, they can play freely, and they can eat whatever is on the table. It just doesn’t get much better than that.

K.D., Food Allergy Warrior Princess

Much to my son’s surprise, he survived his first week of third grade. What’s more, he didn’t get sent to the principal’s office! I was relieved.

The first day had an interesting element to it, however. My son’s best friend is also food-allergic (to milk, eggs, nuts, and seafood), and they are in the same classroom. This is fortunate, because the friend’s mom, Kim, is also one of my best friends, and this means we can share all the classroom food issues that come up.

The first issue came up surprisingly fast.

After lunch, all the kids started coming back into the classroom before the teacher returned. One girl brought in her little carton of milk from lunch. Now, the school policy is that no food leaves the cafeteria. This is partly for food allergies, but also (perhaps mostly) to keep the carpets clean.

There’s another girl in the class, K.D., who has been a best buddy of my son and the other allergic boy since they were all about 18 months old. She’s grown up understanding food allergies nearly as well as either of the boys, and the three of them have been through thick and thin together. She and my son have always acted like siblings – they are both strong-willed, opinionated, determined to be the leader, and unwilling to back down. In other words, brother and sister in all but blood, and they’ve weathered the fights to prove it (and the teacher has already told them they can’t sit together anymore). But despite that, each of the three of them will defend the other to the death, if need be, and woe be to the person who tries to lay a finger on any of the Three Musketeers.

Guess what happened when the unsuspecting student brought the milk into the classroom. As both boys were apparently looking worried and trying to figure out what to do, their female champion tackled the problem headlong. She began chewing out the hapless milk-girl, telling her she couldn’t have milk in the classroom, demanding that she remove it and go wash her hands, and telling her the damage she could cause the stunned boys. The other girl tried to argue, but she was up against a master.

By the time the teacher returned, it was all over, and none of the kids even thought to tell her about it.

After school, Kim noticed a tell-tale itchy spot near her son’s eye, and the boys reluctantly told us about the confrontation. Kim and I asked both boys what they did while their BFF defended them. They admitted they didn’t do anything. In fact, it was clear they were both intimidated. “Why didn’t you do something?” we both asked, aghast. What had happened to all our counseling about standing up for themselves and letting an adult know when there was a dangerous situation? My son has never been one to back down from a confrontation, and certainly he’s never been shy about informing people of his allergies.

“It was girl talk… a girl argument,” he said, as if that explained it all. “I was staying out of that.” His friend agreed. It was obvious that both boys thought Kim and I were nuts if we expected them to get in between two girls having an argument. Besides, they knew their friend had the situation in hand, and if they tried to jump in, they’d just get hit by nasty female crossfire.

I know adult men who haven’t figured out that lesson yet – proof that our boys are above average in the smarts department, if you ask me.

After Kim and I sputtered maternally for a few minutes about how they need to be responsible for themselves and they can’t rely on their friend to handle every situation, we backed off. After all, an amazing thing had happened that day. Kim and I realized that we aren’t our sons’ only protectors. There are other people in this world who care about them enough to protect them.

They’re called friends.

And even if they’re only 8 years old, they make a huge difference in our lives. And we can’t thank them enough.

Thank you, K.D. We love you.