Smiling Through the Challenges

By Stephanie R.

My 13-year-old daughter Julia was born with severe food allergies and has lived with them all of her life. While she has outgrown the less severe food allergies, she still remains to this day, severely allergic to milk. While my husband and I have tried to make her life as normal as possible, this is something that she lives with day in and day out. Julia always has to be on her guard to protect herself from having a severe allergic reaction.

Her first year was not easy – chronic ear infections, annoying eczema, hives, coughing, loose bowels, irritability – you name it. Her first trip to the allergist at 12 months resulted in a diagnosis of food allergies that included, soy, peas, peanuts, eggs, and milk. So what do you feed a child with all of these allergies? Well, you learn to cook and bake from scratch and for the last 13 years, that’s what we’ve done.

While the adults in Julia’s life have learned to manage her food allergies (mom, dad, grandparents, caregivers, teachers, etc.), it was most important that Julia understand how to manage them when she headed off to school. We had to be diligent about where she sat at the lunch table, always making sure to pack her own snacks and lunch, and teaching her not to share food from friends or accept food from others.

We have had a few emergency room visits as a result of exposing her to foods that we didn’t know contained milk. It was difficult to watch Julia have a systemic reaction and try to keep cool while waiting for the ambulance to arrive or trying to find the nearest hospital or waiting for the hospital staff to get her into a room and treat her. Fortunately, we seemed to always be in the right place at the right time and her anaphylactic reactions were reversed through administrating epinephrine and steroids.

It was sometimes hard to keep her spirits up as a little girl when she couldn’t have the same candy as everyone else at Halloween or Easter, or when she couldn’t have the cake/dessert at a birthday party, or when she couldn’t eat anything at the many social events, holidays, and celebrations that occur at school, with family, and with friends year after year.

Although Julia has not always had it easy with her food allergies, it has never stopped her from doing anything that she has wanted to do – we just always had to make sure the proper precautions are taken.  

She has learned at a really young age that her food allergies do not define who she is – she will define who she is through her words and actions and her food allergies are really only one small part of her.

And every day that she walks out of this house and into school or dance or anywhere else she may head, I know she always still has to be on her guard to keep herself safe in order to avoid a potential reaction. Sometimes I think that’s a lot for a young girl to handle – but then I look at all of her accomplishments and realize, she’s really able to manage this, like she manages everything else in her life – with a smile.

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