Let The Christmas Festivities Begin!

Hello everyone! Now that we have entered December I thought it was appropriate to begin discussing Christmas!Christmas is in full swing here at my house; the trees are decorated (all 6 of them), the wreathes are hung and its looking like it will be a white christmas. Like all other holidays, Christmas will involve food, but not to worry! Ive got you covered. All month I will be providing you with Tips and tricks on how to handle any christmas situation with food allergies. The tips begin with my latest blog post for the YAP blog, http://whyriskit.wordpress.com/2013/12/03/food-allergies-and-potlucks-should-i-stay-or-should-i-go/. This blog post is about potlucks and if you should stay or go! Whether it is a school potluck, a work party or just a family get together, I will help you tackle the event. Now to begin the festivities, a couple of my fav christmas Pinterest items! Happy Holidays everyone!!

 

 

elf on the shelf!

 

Easy Peppermint Marshmallows http://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/easy-peppermint-marshmallows/582fc3e4-bad5-40bf-8954-565947232145

Homemade white hot chocolate! http://therecipecritic.com/2012/11/white-hot-chocolate/

 

It’s Giving Tuesday!

Awesome cause!

Food Allergies and Potlucks – Should I stay or should I go?

How am I doing?

As my blog continues to grow, I want to keep you happy! Please fill out the survey below to tell me what you want to see more of on my blog. Feel free to add a comment with some feedback as well or any other comments or concerns you may have. Hope you all have a fabulous weekend and I look forward to adding new content here at A Tale Of Anaphylaxis.

Sincerely, The EpiPenPrincess aka. Sydney

 

Enjoy your Thanksgiving with Freedible!

Hello my lovely followers! Hope everyone had a safe and fun halloween! It may be a touch early but, I am feeling the Christmas spirit! Listened to Christmas music all day and even put up my tree in my room! I have been busy with college applications and some prom dress mishaps.. I will save that story for another day. This Saturday I have a Youth Advisory Pannel online conference so I look forward to sharing some info from that with you guys. Now to get to the point of this post!

Nowadays it seems like we are hearing more and more about food and diet restrictions. Diabetes, gluten free, food allergies, special diets for children with autism and ADHD? They seem to be all around us now! What if there was a community for all of these people to come together; share recipes, share stories and help each other? Well.. There is! Freedible is a new social media website for people with food allergies and other diet restrictions! When you join freedible you become a custom eater!! You can share your recipes and blog posts or read other peoples! Having allergies has its ups and downs, so we all need to stick together. Freedible is like Facebook but exclusively for those with diet restrictions or knows someone with a diet restriction. With Thanksgiving around the corner for my American followers Freedible is on a mission. They want to help the millions of people who will be affected by food allergies this Thanksgiving and help you create a meal that is safe for everyone. Share a recipe and use someone else’s! No matter the diet restriction freedible will have it so you can prepare a meal that is safe for the whole family. So what’s stopping you? Join freedible for free today!
**disclaimer: I am not being payed to say this for freedible. I truly believe in the purpose of this website and know it will only get better the more people that are involved! I am passionate about food allergy awareness and so is freedible!

Have a great night everyone!

Developing Allergies During Your Teenage Years

My post for the YAP blog!

Accommodating Students With Allergies

With allergies you come to learn that some people get it and some just don’t. Usually my teachers are fairly understanding and willing to accommodate but sometimes what they think is accommodating is actually just frustrating! Let me explain…

In my health science class we are doing a unit on nutrition. Tomorrow (Halloween), we will be doing a calorimetry lab where we will be burning a variety of foods and testing the temperatures to determine the number of calories in the food. Of course right away, the word food in class makes me nervous. As well as burning because I am airborne allergic. My teacher is aware of my allergies and when explaining the lab to the class told me I just didn’t have to come that day. I have been given an online worksheet to do in the library instead, but hey maybe I wanted to participate? The class was told they can bring in any foods they want to be burned as long as they are nut free. But as usual no mention of my allergens. Why is okay to burn one food and not the other, when I am just as allergic as some one with nut allergies. Why couldn’t my teacher have asked me to help her bring in foods to burn,that way we could control it. Why do teachers always think they are accommodating by saying don’t come, don’t do it, don’t try? What teachers really should be doing is asking to speak to you privately to discuss strategies on how we can make it work. Even if you decide in the end to not participate, at least they tried. I am sure we can all agree that I would understand the concept much better from the lab than a work sheet.

Definitely a frustrating situation when your someone who is interested in learning and experiencing! Especially on halloween, I want to see everyone’s costumes in class! But for my safety and health I would rather go the library than a classroom with burning food.. Sigh

Epipens Available for Emergency Situations in Eateries!

I recently read a fabulous article that some of my twitter followers were all sharing! The article is written by CBC news and explains how Hamilton, Ontario is the first Canadian city to have Epipens available in commercial eateries. The city is doing a trial run to see how it goes and to look into funding options. Also Ontario’s good samaritan act will keep restaurant staff and bystanders safe from any legal issues if they were to administer an Epi pen on someone. The movement to have epi pens readily available became a topic of discussion for Hamilton when a pre-teen passed away from anaphylaxis at a food court in Burlington this past year. A fact near the end of the article really hit home and has stuck with me.  Here it is: “Among the 82 people who died from anaphylactic shock since 1986, 17 of them had been prescribed an auto-injector. Only nine of them were carrying one at the time.” (This statistic is based on deaths from anaphylaxis in Ontario). I found this so startling because it is so easy to forget your auto injectors at home and think that you wont need it. From my experiences with my allergies, I have learned that a reaction can occur at any time and when you least expect it. I have had epi pens at school, at home, on school trips, at parties, you name it.. its probably happened! But, what if I would have forgotten it that day? Every second counts in these emergency situations so please do your best to bring it every where with you. It is your life line! As I have said before, when I first developed my allergies at 13, I was so in denial that I would always leave my auto injectors at home because I didn’t want to be different than my peers. With time and support I have learned to carry it everywhere with me. I think that it is great for Ontarian’s that Hamilton is starting this movement and hopefully eventually the rest of Canada. Eventually having epipens available in restaurants will help with those fluke times that an auto injector is forgotten or a new allergy occurs. What do you guys think of this topic?

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hello! Just popping in tonight for a quick blog post before bed! Definitely going to get back in to blogging. I have just been so busy lately and didn’t feel inspired to write. Well it’s back to school and work tomorrow after a lovely long weekend. I spent my thanksgiving up at my Aunt and Uncles cottage. We had a yummy turkey dinner and dinner #2 today at home with my mum, dad and grandma. Definitely feeling sleepy after all the turkey and pie! Just to give you a quick update on everything! My senior year is moving quickly and I apply for college on November 1st. I will be doing a 1 year pre health science program and then starting nursing the following year! (Well that is if I get accepted, lol!) I am looking forward to this new chapter of my life, but also scared at the same time! Every time I am in the ER for allergies, I admire the nurses. I admire their work, kindness and patience. I can’t wait till I can help others! Plus wearing scrubs seems like wearing pjs! Who wouldn’t want to wear pyjamas to work…

Blog post to come this week on the YAP blog about my 5 days spent at the Ontario Educational leadership camp! I had an awesome time being a camp counsellor and my allergies were handled so well! More to come.

I am so thankful for all of you guys who continue to read my blog and support me on my journey with allergies. Thank you so much for the beautiful comments and for sharing your advice and experiences with me. I am also very thankful for my family. My family members are my biggest supporters and I am so happy I have people in my life who love and support me! I hope you all had a great thanksgiving! What are you thankful for?

Bye for now!

The Scariest Night Of My Life

My family has always been very supportive of my allergies, but they can never fully understand what it feels like unless they have experienced it (Trust me I don’t want them to experience anaphylaxis). My heart dropped when my phone rang on saturday night and all I heard was my older sister screaming for help. All she kept saying was “I am having an allergic reaction, and no one believes me… Im going to die!!!”. The fear that I heard in her voice brought me straight back to my first reactions. Im just over 2000 km away from my sister and there was nothing I could do to help with a situation that I knew so well. She had an amazing day out with friends apple picking, baking and now out at a party. After having a few drinks her throat began to close,  her tongue and throat were scratchy and her lips were turning blue. My sister was laying on the floor in pain from the cramping caused by anaphylaxis, gasping for air, screaming for help and everyone stood there and would not call an ambulance. Everyone continued to tell her it was just asthma, she was just drunk, panicking and over reacting.Of all my near death experiences from anaphylaxis, I have never been as scared as I was hearing my sister experience it over the phone. Hearing her scream for help and say that was she going to die was the most frightening thing I have ever experienced. I truly thought my sister was going to die and I would hear her take her last breath on the phone. Luckily she called her own ambulance. She has shown some symptoms of allergies in the past, but we never imagined she would turn anaphylactic. She is headed to go get her first epipen tonight and I am happy that I will be able to support her in something that I too have gone through. After getting out of the hospital Saturday night she called me and said that she wanted me to know that she was sorry. She said as she laid on the floor that night she kept repeating “Im sorry Sydney”. She wanted to apologize for if at any point she had made me feel like she doubted my allergies and for not understanding. She said that feeling anaphylaxis really made her realize and feel sorry for everything I have been through.  What I really want people to learn from this experience is that anyone can develop a life threatening allergy at any time! It is also important to keep in mind that we need to be careful when consuming alcohol. This experience definitely proved to me that not many people understand the severity of allergies and we need to continue to fight for awareness. Whether someone is sober or had a few drinks, they still deserve equal emergency medical treatment!!! I am glad I was able to get that off my chest! I love you Anastasia, your the most amazing sister. Welcome to the club!

My sister and best friend. I love you