Here we go again

http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/04/health/virginia-allergy-death/index.html?hpt=he_c2

The tragedy is unsettling, but what's worse is the loud, angry debate found in the comment section, and in the comment section of every other story like this. "The kid should've been homeschooled!" "All children have rights!" "Not my kid, not my problem!"
It's the reason I'm afraid to ask for anything. It's frightening and unfeeling and callous, but mostly it's tiring. I am so sick of this. Will this issue ever be resolved?

Not good

Here's an article I found this morning. It talks about the recent rise in food allergies in children.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/25/health/plastics-perfumes-new-allergies/index.html?hpt=he_c2

I don't like where this is headed. I can say from experience it's very difficult for two people, both with severe allergies, although to different things, to spend time together without making each other sick. I'm not sure how the world will function if this gets much worse.

How far am I allowed to go?

While I understand that my school's reluctance and in some cases flat-out refusal to accommodate me for the sake of their convenience was wrong, I have to wonder if they did have a point. Things like regularly wiping down surfaces and reading the label on everything I eat might seem normal to me, but to other people look ridiculously extreme. And do I actually have a right to say that no one around me can eat peanuts ever?
Adults glared at me when I asked them to bring the class candy from one brand and not another, and while that might be somewhat justifiable, where am I supposed to draw the line? I wanted to attend parties, but I didn't want to inconvenience anyone. I didn't know what to do. I still don't.
I panic a little whenever I read about legislation for better allergy policies in schools. "Don't these people know that's inconvenient and annoying? The school officials are going to frown and cross their arms at them! They'll be intimidated! What do they think they're doing???" But that's a stupid response, and I know it's a stupid response, and yet I can't help it because I don't know how far I'm allowed to go.
At what point would you be angry with me?

Well....shit.

I had a nice long post partway typed out about the vacation we just came back from, but my computer stalled and froze and had to be restarted and I lost the whole thing. Sooooo, I'll come back to that later and for now I'm gonna talk about sunglasses.

We went to New Mexico and Texas in our camper last week and I spent a lot of time thinking longingly of sunglasses and how much I miss being able to wear them. I'd love to, but I don't, because they're just not worth the misunderstandings.
I got Poodleface at the beginning of summer, so I learned fairly quickly that if you wear sunglasses whilst walking a service dog everyone will assume that you're blind. A lot of people will approach you and ask if they're right, are you blind? And then you get to explain that you're not, no, it's just very bright outside, and then the conversation can go one of two ways. They can be embarrassed but handle it well, or they can demand to know if you really need a service dog at all or if you were just hoping you could wear the sunglasses and have no one notice the clearly unworthy dog you've just brought into their store.
So I swore off sunglasses forever.

What would it take to make a scaredy-cat play with fire?

In one of my previous posts I talked about how my allergist assumed that I was no longer allergic to peanuts because I hadn't been to the emergency room in the past year. I hadn't planned on talking about him any further, but today I found an appointment reminder postcard from him in my mailbox and now I'm angry enough to elaborate on his story.

As I said before, he was insistent that I, personally, didn't need a service dog, nor did anyone else with a severe allergy. He explained to my family why he thought it was a bad idea and said that we should instead consider prescription medication to suppress my immune system. My father declined the medication and insisted that he give me the test, as they had planned over the phone. He did have me tested but kept insisting that I must not be severely allergic anymore because I hadn't nearly died recently.

The tests showed that I was still severely allergic and perhaps I hadn't nearly died recently because I was a responsible young adult who knew how to manage my allergy. 

My parents sent in the paperwork for the service dog and everything was approved. Now we just had to get permission from the school district for me to bring the dog to school.

The reason my parents thought I needed a dog was that I kept getting sick in class. I would being to cough and would get painful rashes, usually on the palms of my hands or the undersides of my arms, which indicated that I'd sat at a contaminated desk or touched a contaminated hand rail. The reactions that I was having were usually very painful, and with each new reaction there was a risk that my allergy could become much more severe. It was already at the point were it could kill me, and my parents didn't want it to become bad enough that I could die before medical help could arrive. 

About three weeks after I'd seen the allergist I started to have problems in one of my classes. After a few minutes of class my hands would begin to feel hot and itchy and I would being to cough. On one day I wore short sleeves and the reaction covered my entire right arm. After a few minutes of coughing I would either ask to leave or the teacher would order me to step outside until I could get control of myself, and then I would go down to the office and get some Benadryl from the nurse and ask that someone please clean my desk. This happened three days in a row. On the third day my assigned guidance counselor approached me as I was sitting outside the nurse's office waiting for the period to end. She sat down next to me and asked me, with great concern in her voice, why I was skipping this class. I told her that I wasn't skipping, I really was having an allergic reaction. She said, still sounding very concerned, that she knew it wasn't possible for me to have an allergic reaction unless I ate something and that I could tell her what was bothering me. I tried to explain that some allergies are more severe than others, but she left before I could finish.

She went back to her office and made several phone calls, one of which was to my allergist, whose number I assume she got from my file. She told him that, hypothetically, there was a student who was claiming to have an allergic reaction to peanuts when there were no peanuts present in the room, and that she hadn't recently eaten anything that might have been causing it. And she wondered, hypothetically, if this was possible. My allergist told her that, hypothetically, the student was lying. 

Being the kind, caring, and exceedingly nosy person that she is, my counselor decided that she should save my academic future by putting a stop to my lying. 

There were already a lot of people who didn't believe me, so many that I was honestly surprised when the teacher was the one who asked me to leave. Usually I'm told that I have to stay, and then they would watch me closely to see if they could find a flaw in my acting, and I'd either have to get up and leave without their permission or bother them enough that they let me leave so that my parents wouldn't complain to the school. So the fact that my counselor had gotten a medical professional to say that, hypothetically, I was a liar, wasn't great for the case that I should be allowed to have a service dog.

That night my father spent hours at the computer, surfing the internet and printing a stack of papers as thick as a paperback book. They all talked about severe food allergies, and they all supported what I'd said. He took it to the principal, explained what was happening with me, and then made the case for the service dog. The principal agreed.

But it really screwed me up. I already wasn't sure I deserved a service dog. The junior high had let people give me death threats and acted like I was off my nut when I tried to get them to help me. My allergist had insisted a service dog was unnecessary. And half the adults in my life got angry or exasperated or began patting me on the head when I mentioned my allergies. Was I really allergic? Was I lying so well I'd convinced myself? What could I have done wrong to make so many people angry with me? 

My father cut my old allergist out of the loop. The next time we needed a doctor's note he got it from the pediatrician, and he found a new allergist out of state that I'll go to the next time I need an allergy test. So today, when I got the appointment card from that close-minded old fart, and I realized that he still considers me his patient and thinks he can have a say in my life, I took it outside and burned it. 

Where was I again?

Ever since I got Poodleface the world has had a tendency to get too complicated very, very quickly.
Let me explain: when you're in the middle of a large group of people, for example, you have a lot of things to worry about. Namely the location of your elbows and feet to ensure that you don't step on anyone. If you're like me, you're probably also trying not to brush against anyone or to let them brush against you, and you may or may not be attempting to navigate with a large purse, depending on where you keep your EpiPens. It's a lot to think about. Now, imagine yourself in the same situation, only you're steering a dog. You and the dog are walking close together because of the crowds, and occasionally you'll need to take a rather awkwardly-placed step to avoid treading on the dog. You'll also need to keep watch for any small children (or adults) who want to touch the dog, while still navigating the crowd, trying not to be touched and not to hit anyone with your purse.
Someone you know from school comes up to you and wants to talk. You're discussing the new headband you're wearing when you see, out of the corner of your eye, an unattended child running gleefully toward your dog. In your world, your friend no longer exists. You need to deal with the child, and if your friend is saying anything to you you're not hearing it. There are too many variables, too many balls in the air, and you've chosen to drop everything that doesn't matter and pick it up again later.
I'd seen the same thing happen to mothers with several children to wrangle, but I'd never realized it would happen to me. I didn't realize a lot of things.

Like that Poodleface talks in his sleep. It's night, I'm typing this in bed, and this is the third time I've talked him awake after he started whimpering. I really hope he catches that squirrel.

Things I didn't realize

A lot of things changed for me when I got Poodleface. Some of them I was anticipating, but some surprised me. Things like:

• Constantly having my hands full. I loop Poodleface's leash around my right thumb and hold any slack leash in my right hand. I slide my left hand along the leash to let out or take back leash, depending on the size of the crowd we're in and any obstacles we might need to navigate around. This means that I can't carry many things, have to transfer the leash to my left hand before I can shake hands, and have to use a cart or a basket when I'm shopping for more than one item at a time. 
• Hearing people gossip about me when I'm right there. It's apparently socially acceptable to point out someone with a service dog and debate with your friend what might be wrong with them. It's apparently not socially acceptable to turn to people who are gossiping about you, smile exaggeratedly, and explain all the things they were wondering in an overly sugary voice. Which I don't think is very fair.
• Having to deal with someone else's switch from anger to deep embarrassment without making them feel worse. Some people politely take me aside and ask for confirmation that my dog is a service dog, but others feel the need to shout from across the store that I'd better take my dog outside this instant. Then they inevitably feel like dicks when they figure out it's a service dog, and I feel like I have to console the person who was just ranting at me. It's uncomfortable for both of us. 
• Having to wonder if that compliment was meant for me or for my dog. A cashier once said, "You look beautiful!" to which I responded, "Thanks." Then she turned three shades of red and confided that she'd actually been speaking to my dog. And at a school competition I once incurred the wrath of a judge by expressing annoyance that she jumped up to greet and talk to the dog of the contestant she was supposed to be judging before paying any attention to me. My supervising teacher later showed me the long, angry note she'd left on my score card about how I was far too rude and sensitive about my dog and should really learn some self-control. Excuse me for wanting to be spoken to before my four-legged companion who doesn't understand you and can't answer.
• Never, ever being alone. Poodleface sleeps in my room and comes with me whenever I leave the house. My only poodle-free moments are when I'm showering, and even then only when I lock the bathroom door because he's figured out how to open it. 
• Not getting sick anymore. I didn't really believe it could happen, but it did. No more painful rashes, no more coughing fits, no more sick headaches. I still sneeze far too much from my allergies to dust, pollen, and perfume, but I no longer feel horrible several times a month. And it's great.