More information

http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/11/health/living-well/food-allergies-schools/index.html?hpt=he_c1

I have questions about this story. They address the issue of students not knowing that they are allergic until they have a reaction, but I don't think they ever come out and say that this girl didn't know. If she did, why did she take the peanut? And if she didn't, what was a peanut doing outside at recess? At my elementary school we were only allowed to have food in the cafeteria or when handed out by a teacher, for custodial reasons as well as health ones.

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?

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?

Did you read the dead bird?

I'm a vegetarian. Not because of any meat-is-murder train of thought, because my mother is a vegetarian and I was raised on a vegetarian diet. When I was about eight my parents asked me if I wanted to try meat, but we had a hard time finding a restaurant that didn't cook their meat in or close to peanut oil, and when I finally got some it wasn't earth-shatteringly wonderful. I ate hot dogs for a while, but after finding an unidentifiable and very chewy thing in the middle of one I was more than ready to go back to salad. There's usually a small packet of ham in the fridge that my father puts in his omlettes, but apart from that the house is pretty meat-free.
My father went to the store last night after we realized that we'd run out of food without anyone noticing. When he came back I started putting the food away and discovered some fried chicken, which raised a lot of alarm bells because the bag said it was from Wal*Mart and we'd discovered when I was eleven that I couldn't eat chicken from Wal*Mart. Since it had been six years I thought that something might have changed, but I was still cautious enough that I went outside in the dark in my pajamas to where my father was continuing to unload the car, where I asked him if he had "read the dead bird," which is wary vegetarian teenager speak for "did you check to make sure it's safe for me to be in the same room with the chicken?"
He said he had read the dead bird, but when I got more specific and asked if he'd read the dead bird display he realized that he hadn't. Six years ago the chicken itself had been fine, while the display had warned that everything on it had been made next to stuff that was made in peanut oil.
Although I'm usually the one who searches with him, Poodleface was already sniffing around the chicken when my dad got back to the kitchen, so he asked him if there was anything there and he happily indicated. Which impressed my dad, since he normally doesn't give Poodleface the time of day. And yet the dog was willing to search for him.
I came in shortly after that and asked Poodleface to confirm what he'd told my dad, which he did very emphatically, slapping his paw against the bag when my dad asked him if he was sure. "It's here, right here, I've only told you three times!"  Then he got his reward and the chicken was removed from the house.
Have I mentioned that I love that dog?

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. 

How I (metaphorically) singed my nose hair

Poodleface and I went to a Renaissance Festival with my parents earlier this year. It was great; I saw performances and musicians and wonderful costumes, I bought a wooden sword I later accidentally rolled onto in my sleep and a Sky Chair that we'll probably never install, I was referred to as a 'fair maiden' with absolutely no sarcasm, and I successfully escaped the vendor who wanted to sell me a dog kilt, whatever the heck that is.
I also learned what happens when I walk past a stall selling roasted peanuts; Poodleface signals with more enthusiasm than I've ever seen, and I grab my nose and wonder if it's possible my nostrils have managed to spontaneously combust.
One of my many trivia books once told me that most kinds of sneezing powder are just finely ground pepper in a jar. So, since I was eleven and had no idea the kind of power that household pepper wields, I got some out of the spice cabinet and inhaled it. Walking past the peanut vendor was like that, only the burning was more intense and my eyes didn't immediately start to water. I kept walking, sneezed about five times, and felt a lot better. Not to sound like a mad scientist, but it was an interesting experience. Most of my peanut reactions center around my throat or my skin, but I'd just happened to be breathing through my nose this time.
After getting far away from the peanut vendor, I enjoyed the rest of my time at the Renaissance Festival, and I think Poodleface did too. It was a nice vacation. Well, except for the bit where I impaled myself on my own sword.

Sorry, you're not allowed to die for your country

I support our troops, but I'd never thought about joining them. I'd always been small and thin and not very strong, until I had a massive growth spurt a few years ago, and now I'm tall and thin and not very strong. Enlisting just didn't seem like something I could do, or that I wanted to do.
Until I was told that I couldn't. Then I spent several days seriously considering enlisting anyway just to fuck with everybody.
See, my school has this torturous thing called "Post-high planning day" where we were all required to mill around the gym for forty-five minutes while people with brochures gave us free pens and tried to convince us that their college was best.
I already knew where I wanted to go to college. I'd decided three years ago, but I was still required to do things like this. I was also required to take career aptitude and personality match-up tests twice a year every year even though I'd been saying I wanted to be a writer since sixth grade, because God forbid we not have our entire lives planned out by the time we graduate.
Anyway, I really didn't care, so I found some of my friends and trailed along behind them, half-listening to canned speeches on various colleges and collecting a lot of free pens. Until we got to the table advertising military service, where the representative mistakenly assumed I cared and asked me why I had a service dog. When I told him, he said I couldn't enlist. How could they ensure my meals would be safe? How could they get me medical attention if they weren't? How much use was I if I dropped dead in the barracks instead of out on the battlefield where I might at least be able to trip someone?
I don't like being told I can't do things. I don't think anyone does. So even though I understand perfectly the logic behind it, it still really pisses me off. And even though I, personally, never wanted to enlist in the first place, there's probably someone like me out there who did.
What I'm really angry about is that I can't even say it's discrimination because it fucking makes sense. I've got to admit, I'm a very complicated person to accommodate.

A moment with my shattered dreams

Like any other child, I've had a lot of dreams about what I'd like my life to be like. Frustratingly, because of my allergy, most of them are going to be impossible.

I wanted to be a daycare worker.

I was only in daycare a few months, and most of the time I had a rash somewhere on my body. But there was something attractive about it, something fun, and I decided that when I was old enough to get a job I was going to work at a daycare center.

Which I now know I can't do because of snack time, and because little kids are often fed treats with peanuts before their parents bring them in. So I'd need to find a daycare that was entirely peanut-free.

I wanted to be a babysitter.

You can blame this one on the Babysitters Club books I used to read. But I can't do this one for the same reason I can't be a daycare worker, and also because no one is going to want to wipe down all the possibly nut-contaminated surfaces in their house to accommodate the teenager who's going to watch their kids for a few hours.

I wanted to be a flight attendant.

Flying seemed glamorous and cool, and what better way to see the world? But, of course, there's the whole they-serve-peanuts-on-airplanes problem, not to mention that I'd have to eat at restaurants and I'm extremely uncomfortable eating food I haven't made myself.

I wanted to be an actress.

I'm allergic to makeup. Which sucks, because I think I'd look great in green eye shadow. 

I wanted to have a summer job.

I can't work with food. At all. I can't serve it, I can't bag it, I can't stack it on the shelves. So that means the only stores I could possibly get hired at would be ones that sell clothing or electronics, both sought-after jobs that someone else always got first.

I wanted to be a vet.

Cat allergy.

I wanted to work in a pet store.

Cat allergy. And allergy to wood chips.

So, after careful consideration, I decided to become a writer.

How am I doing?

Do they just sit around waiting for a chance to call bullshit?

When I was in fifth grade my parents discovered the magic of almond butter. They had me try some, and although I didn't really like it, I said it was nice because they were so happy. They were thrilled that I could now get one step closer to a normal childhood and packed an almond butter and jelly sandwich in my lunch the next day.
Which prompted shouts of, "SHE'S NOT REALLY ALLERGIC TO PEANUTS!"
I tried to explain that it was ALMOND butter, but no one was interested in listening. They didn't want the truth to get in the way of their fun, and so I sat there crying on my sandwich while boys climbed over the tables to spread the joyous news that I was a liar.
Several years later the same thing happened again, this time while I was eating a Hershey bar. No one wanted to hear me explain that their chocolate bars are manufactured in their own facility, far away from peanuts. They were all too busy being loud about how they'd caught me.
Don't these people have better things to do than sit around waiting for a chance to accuse someone?

Next we'll rob you blind to teach good money management

A common argument by schools, mine included, is that they shouldn't have to enact policies for allergic kids because it would give them a false sense of security and prevent them from learning the self-protection skills they would need to live in the real world. As someone who went to a school with such a philosophy, I'm calling bullshit.

My school had no peanut-free table because they didn't want allergic kids to feel different. Which sounds wonderful, until you remember that we are different. There was also nothing available with which I could clean a table, so I was basically spending my lunches playing a low-stakes game of russian roulette and hoping my arms weren't going to break out in a rash. After a few weeks I started carrying wet wipes around and creating my own personal peanut-free zone.
Oh, and the death threat girl I discussed earlier quickly learned that she could evict me from any table I'd chosen simply by sitting down at it and opening a peanut butter cup. She had hours of fun doing this.
So, in my opinion, the lack of a peanut-free table attempted to gloss over my differences and encourage me to pretend to be normal, which is a good way to get myself killed. Probably not a helpful life skill.

My school had no list of alternative candy. Every year I would think, "This is it. We're finally too old to be rewarded with candy." And every year I would be proven wrong. I was a Junior in high school when I walked out, so who knows, maybe in Senior year they no longer throw candy around the room. But I doubt it.
Whenever a teacher pulled out a bag of candy and announced a quiz game I would lean forward to see the label, and about half the time I recognized it as a brand that uses peanuts or is processed on equipment that also handles products containing peanuts, and I had to go sit in the hall for the rest of the class. Which kind of defeats the purpose of school, don't you think?
I know how to walk out of a room, so don't tell me I'm learning any important surviving-the-world techniques, and I'm certainly not learning the subject material. The only thing being banished from quiz games teaches me is which teachers are nice, caring people who truly want all their students to succeed, and which ones are only there for the coffee and the chance to hand out detentions. Probably not a helpful life skill.

My school didn't give a damn what was wrong with you, you were going to eat what you made in home ec!
I had a lot of problems with home ec. Firstly, the teacher was a neat freak who made you Lysol your chair if she caught you sitting on your feet, which I liked to do because I was a small kid and wanted my head on the same level as everyone else's. Secondly, the teacher didn't really see anything wrong with pairing me up with the previously mentioned death threat girl for a module on crotchet, and didn't ask her to stop talking about killing me even though our station was the one closest to her desk. And thirdly, even though I requested I not be given a module for which I would have to cook, she gave me a module for which I would have to cook. And nothing in the fridge had a label.
I actually have no idea why nothing in the fridge had a label. She told me it had to do with the school not being allowed to promote one brand name over another, which seemed like kind of a stupid rule and also meant that there were no ingredients lists. So I told her okay, I'll cook, but I want to wear plastic gloves and I'm not eating any of it.
She nixed the plastic gloves and told me that I was going to be eating all of it.
Everything in that fridge had been opened and who knows who had had their fingers in it, and there weren't any ingredients lists for me to check, and there was a jar of peanut butter staring me down from the top shelf, and she wanted me to cook with this stuff with my bare hands and then eat it. I wondered, did she also want me to call the ambulance myself?
I refused to eat any of it, forcing my disgruntled module partner to deal with the half-rate food we made before the teacher dropped by to do a plate check and make sure every morsel had been consumed. By the end of the week we were halving all the measurements so my partner didn't explode.
Honestly, what was the point of that? It didn't teach me anything, except how to lie to a teacher and get away with it. It actually seems to go beyond refusing to make accommodations and enter the realm of deliberately setting students up to fail, or to get themselves killed.

My school had a zero-tolerance policy with no exceptions. I knew a girl who had asthma, and to use her inhaler she had to ask her teacher for permission to go to the office, and then she had to walk there (because running is strictly prohibited no matter the circumstance), convince the evil gatekeepers (aka the skeptical secretaries) that she needed to see the nurse, and then she got her inhaler. To get a disgusting yet helpful Benadryl tablet I had to do the same, although my teachers rarely let me out of the room and the secretaries liked to spend a few minutes trying to trick me into admitting something before letting me make my request to the nurse. And every time I was in there they would all try to convince me to leave my EpiPens with them for safekeeping instead of, I don't know, carrying them on my person like the emergency lifesaving devices that they were? Because it's so practical to have me walk to the office while I'm going into anaphylactic shock.
The only life-skill this taught me is that I should never freely admit I'm carrying medication, and that I should always keep some disgusting Benadryl tablets in my bag and should take on in a bathroom stall when I think I need it.

I'm just like Jane!

My father and I love to watch The Mentalist. In one episode (spoiler alert!) we get to see Patrick Jane consciously mess with his body's reactions to fake alcohol poisoning. He goes the whole mile, even influencing his heart rate and blood pressure to make it look real.

And I, apparently, can do the same thing. Although my reasons are less honorable; I don't want to catch a killer, I just want to get out of class, and I might also want your sympathy, although opinions vary on just how devious I am. 

You see, someone at my school read an article that said that allergic people can actually make themselves have a reaction by focusing hard enough on what it feels like to have a reaction. 

This was fascinating! It explained that weird nut girl perfectly! We all knew it wasn't possible to be that allergic; she must be doing it to herself!

The article made the rounds, and soon I couldn't cough without half a dozen of my fellow thirteen-year-olds furiously cursing me out for daring to try and pull this crap again.

Opinions varied on why I was actually doing it. Some people thought I didn't realize what I was doing, I was just so helplessly paranoid I wound myself up into fits of panic. I was clearly sick and I needed psychiatric help. Others thought I wanted to be special. I wanted adults to feel sorry for me and treat me differently. I was so desperate to have a disability I was doing everything in my power to fake one. And some people just thought I didn't have the balls to cut class the traditional way.

I showed people that I had a rash, that my skin was patched with angry red. They told me I'd rubbed my skin raw with my nails in an attempt to make it look real. I coughed and coughed, covering my mouth like I wanted to stop, but they told me they knew I was just a good actress. 

And I wasn't sure whether or not they were right. I mean, so many people furious at a thirteen-year-old girl for being sick, shouting at her that what she was claiming wasn't even possible? How could I not begin to believe them?

I asked my parents whether they were right. Was I faking all of this? Did I have something wrong with me mentally? 

My parents had my doctor write the school a note about my allergy. They took it into the office and made sure everyone saw it, and they asked to speak with all my teachers and re-explained what I'd already told them, and left the note with the school nurse to put in my file.

But as soon as my parents left everyone went back to treating me like I was crazy. My teachers told me to stop being dramatic, my classmates shouted at me for being such a bitch. And then they all took it one step further and demanded to know why I was pretending to have an allergy in the first place.

Now it wasn't just the attacks I was faking.

It was the whole allergy.

I really, really hated myself for daring to be allergic to peanuts. Clearly it wasn't right. Clearly it wasn't acceptable. I should just do what everyone was telling me to and stop having the allergy.

But I couldn't do it. 

And there was something else I couldn't do.

I thought, if I was already doing it, already subconsciously faking to get myself out of class, what was wrong with doing it deliberately? If I can't stop, if it's a compulsion that I have no control over, I might as well make it useful and do it to get out of a class I really hate, right? 

So I tried it during math class.

I concentrated really hard on the way it felt to have a reaction. The way my neck and chin prickled. The hot, unpleasant taste in my mouth. The way light was too bright, and the compulsion to cough that I couldn't fight, even when I was barely getting enough air to breathe. 

Nothing happened.

Okay, that was okay, I'd just pretend I was feeling it. It only had to look real. So I scratched at my arms a bit and tried to recreate a rash.

It didn't look right. Rashes are patchy-looking, this just looked like I'd scratched too hard. Why couldn't I do it? If I'd done it so many times before, why couldn't I do it now???

Maybe because I'd actually been telling the truth?

Not that it mattered to everyone else. They all still hated me. Which is probably why they had no problem handing out death threats; I clearly wasn't allergic, so the threat wasn't even real. And why the hell did the school let me get a service dog for a condition I didn't have? That didn't even exist?

I hate this town. 

And the feeling appears to be mutual.

Death threats

When I was in junior high I did something that irritated another girl. I'm not sure what. I just remember that one day she tapped me on the shoulder, and when I turned to her she smiled at me and told me that she was going to take a peanut and kill me.
I slapped her. I was so angry I could barely think. Not about what she'd said, but the look on her face when she'd said it. Positively gleeful.
I went to the office and said that I wanted to speak to the principal because someone had given me a death threat. He was very serious about it, very official, until I mentioned that it wasn't a knife or a gun she'd threatened me with, but a peanut. Then he relaxed. He told me that she had only been teasing me, and talked over my protests to say that kids will be kids, everyone is bullied in school. Then he told me that he could suspend me for hitting her, and if anyone was ever being mean to me again I shouldn't fight back, because if I fought back we would both have to be punished.
The next day she found me again and re-told her story, expanding the plot a little to include her going to my house and killing my pets and smearing their bodies with peanut butter so I couldn't bury them, and then killing me slowly in the empty house when I came home and was crying.
This time I didn't hit her. I didn't touch her. I didn't even insult her. I just went back to the principal, who reminded me that this happens to every kid before sending me back out of his office.
And then she would not leave me alone.
And I completely believed her. I believed that if she ever got an opportunity, if we were ever alone together, she would kill me. She looked happiest when she was imaging scenarios of my death.
And she wouldn't stop touching me. She sat behind me in third period, and she loved to brush her hands along the back of my neck and whisper threats in my ear. I hated being touched. I knew that someone's breakfast, or their hand lotion, or their pet cat could make me sick if they touched me. But my teachers told me to just ignore her, and my principal ordered me to stop using reporting her as an excuse to get out of class.
And she laughed at me. She looked so happy. I wanted to attack her and scratch her face off with my nails, but I'd been told that I would be suspended if I hurt her.
I didn't want to go anywhere alone. If I met her alone, off school grounds, I knew she'd try to kill me. But as long as I was only seeing her in the classroom she would never have a chance, and all she'd be able to do to me was imagine in my ear.
And she had friends. After a few weeks there were others who realized that no one would stop them if they wanted to threaten me. People passed me notes with threats on them, and they shouldered past me in the hall, shouting "PEANUT!" as they went. I took the notes to the office, but by now I'd so annoyed the principal that the secretaries threw me out as soon as I walked in the door. My English teacher was the only one who took the notes seriously, and she called their parents herself instead of trying to go through the principal.
I started getting sick much more often than before. My teachers got mad at me, said this was just my latest excuse to get out of class. I'd always gotten skin rashes, always felt a little off, but now it was like I was always prickly, always gray, always on the edge of sick. I wanted to tear the skin off my fingers or slam my hands in a door, do something to them because they always hurt now.
I started wearing long sleeves, and I pulled them over my hands before I touched anything. It made me feel better.
And I got used to death threats. I learned to recognize the voice of boredom and the voice of hatred and know which threats I should fear. And I learned to pretend I felt fine, and to quickly get out of the way of someone who wanted to touch me.
And sometime in eighth grade, they stopped caring. I got boring. And the girl who I'd been so sure would kill me seemed to hit some kind of anger wall, and she lashed out at everyone, and now she was the one being bullied.
But I spent a year afraid for my life, and none of my teachers cared. I told my parents a few times, when it got bad, when I was really angry, and they called the school and my teachers brushed them off and didn't actually do anything, and it upset them so much I just stopped bringing it up.
And people still threatened me, every now and then, when they felt like it.
I guess that's why they thought it would be okay to hurt my service dog.
That's why I left, you know. Someone kicked my service dog. And my teachers didn't see anything wrong with it.
So now I have a blog.
What else am I supposed to do?

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.

What the eff happened?

Something that has puzzled me for many years: why do so many people think I'm a liar?
My parents did what all good parents are supposed to do. They got in touch with my school every year, made sure all my teachers knew about my allergy, dropped off a doctor's note saying I should be able to carry an EpiPen, and generally reminded everyone not to poison their daughter. So what the eff happened to convince a very vocal portion of the community that I'm boldly faking it for attention???
I've had teachers who were wonderful, and I've had friends who were wonderful, but I've also been approached by people who want me to know they think I'm a lying sack of crap.
One of my assigned guidance counselors, when I asked her to help me with some kids who were taunting me about peanuts, told me that it was because they knew what I was saying was ridiculous, and if I dropped the whole peanut thing and ate school lunch like a normal person everyone would like me again. My art teacher, although she seemed to like me, never understood why I wanted her to check ingredients lists, and I was constantly storming out of the art room under an irritated black cloud because she'd brought us yet another snack I couldn't be in the room with. Kids have come up to me in the lunch room or the halls and asked me why I'm so dramatic about my allergy, and I've been issued one or two detentions, which I opted not to show up for, because I left a room to go to the nurse to get treatment for a reaction the teacher didn't believe I was having. So what did I do to convince these people that I'm a liar?
And not everyone stops the conspiracy train with the idea that I crave the spotlight. In a terrifying shouting match with a teacher I was very intimidated by, I was asked why I felt the need to control everyone around me. All this because I asked him if, this time, he could bring us a candy I could have too. And when I got my service dog the shit really hit the fan, with people snarling at me that it must be wonderful for me to be able to bring my pet to school.
I have wondered for years and I am really at a loss for explanations, what did I do?!?!?!?!
For a while, even after leaving school, I secretly feared I was all the things they'd said I was. That subconsciously I really did want attention.
Then I read about the conflict in Florida.
For those of you who didn't follow it, a group of parents decided to protest the security measures an elementary school had put in place to protect a six-year-old with peanut allergies. And I mean protest protest, as in, they stood outside with signs. Because of a six-year-old girl.
So now I'm hopeful that maybe it's the world that's crazy and not me. Kind of like that line from one of the more poorly-written episodes of Star Trek, "If there's nothing wrong with me, maybe there's something wrong with the universe!"
Well, maybe there is something wrong with the universe if it's so determined to be angry with allergic children. So what can I do to change the world, besides blog about it?

The candy shop

I used to love Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It was even my favorite movie for a while, until I discovered Pokemon. I used to wish that a candy shop would open in my town so I could stop there on the way home from school like Charlie did.

It took me a few years to realize that I should probably stop making that wish because even if one did open I wouldn't be able to go. In elementary school I frequently irritated my teachers by approaching them just after lunch and whining that "my chin itched," which was seven-year-old speak for "I'm having an allergic reaction and it itches like hell, mostly on my hands and arms and also my elbows and where I've been leaning my head on my hand." Then they had to send me to the bathroom with orders to take a sponge bath in the sink, and while I was gone write up a note for the lunch monitor reminding them, once again, not to seat me near anyone who had peanuts! Somehow, even though I was very aware I was allergic to peanuts, and couldn't be anywhere near peanuts, and couldn't eat lots of different candies because of peanuts, it took a while for me to figure out that I wouldn't be able to stroll into a candy shop like a normal kid.

Which is why I was just a little annoyed last year when my wish very tardily came true. 

My mother and pretty much everyone else knew about this long before I did, and by the time I'd heard about it from a friend my mother, who actually reads the newspaper, had already called them and asked if they used peanuts at all. Her question was me with a resounding yes, there were peanuts in the brownies and the cookies and the ice cream and the jars of candy they had just sitting around. So when my friend mentioned in front of her that we should stop there on our Christmas shopping, she cut in to say I probably shouldn't even think about it. 

I decided to think about it anyway, and I then decided that it would probably be alright if I just walked in with my friend and did my awkward little stand-there-and-don't-touch-anything routine. I'd perfected it over years of school field trips and parties and rewards for which we ended up at a restaurant or went out for ice cream or did something else for which I was required to stand off to the side and watch everyone else have fun. I'd gotten used to it, and I really wanted to be able to go to the candy shop with my friend and do something that normal kids do. As I recall, I hadn't yet figured out that having a service dog pretty much proved I wasn't normal and should probably stop trying before I hurt myself, and so into the candy shop we went. 

I thought it smelled very nice, and unfortunately so did my dog, although his definition of nice meant that I was going to have to praise him and/or give him a treat. He sat, signaling that he'd found some peanuts, but had trouble telling me where. We were in the middle of the room and not near any of the counters or tables, and when I asked him he pointed in several directions and then repeated his signal, as though he was trying to alert on the air itself. I patted him and rubbed his ears and told him he was a good dog, and we went over and stood next to my friend while she filled a bag with the candies she wanted to give her mother for Christmas. I coughed once into my sleeve, and my friend immediately turned to me and asked if I was alright. She was one of the few people in my town who actually believed me when I told them about my allergies, and she was probably being smarter about the whole situation than I was. I told her I was fine.

As she paid I coughed several more times, and after she'd rushed us from the shop I spent several minutes coughing so hard I was afraid I might accidentally vomit.  

So, in short, I was an idiot. It was the first stupid thing I'd done in years, but I made up for lost time with level of idiocy. At least I had the foresight not to lean on anything.

I still look in the windows when I pass that place, although I'm not dumb enough to go back in. It's really frustrating at times just how much I can't do, and what's worse is that so many people don't believe me. 

Whenever I think of the candy shop I remember a scene from a movie we watched in eighth grade History. It was about segregation, and at one point we saw a black-and-white image of a girl sadly looking through the window of a soda shop she couldn't enter. 

Sometimes I really feel different.

Meet Riley! (and the trouble with being safe)

This is a news video about another girl with an allergen alert dog.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqrdtqJPBLE
In the video Riley's mother tells us that her daughter has almost died six times. Sounds impressive, doesn't it? It's the kind of statement that really drives home just how bad her allergy really is.
To qualify for an allergen alert dog I had to have a recent allergy test proving that my allergy was as bad as I said it was. So my parents drove me to a nearby city to see the only allergist in the state (we really do live in the middle of nowhere) and see if my allergy was still just as severe.
The first thing the allergist asked me was how many times I'd been to the emergency room in the last year. Rather proud of myself, I told him none. To which he smiled and reassured me that I didn't need a service dog, I clearly wasn't that allergic.
Hold on, hold it, hold the phone! I'd stayed out of the emergency room by being responsible about my allergy! I'd carried chewable Benadryl tablets everywhere and taken one whenever I was having a reaction, before it got bad. I had turned down numerous invitations to eat out. I'd packed my lunch every day for school, and I'd cleaned the table with a wet wipe before I sat down. I never, never ate anything that wasn't packaged, sealed, and with a clear list on ingredients, or that I hadn't made myself. Therefore, I hadn't had any reactions from ingesting peanuts, which are the kind most likely to be lethal in under five minutes. I'd had lots of reactions from physical contact or from the smell or from inhaling peanut dust, but they were less likely to be severe and I'd always taken medication. I thought I should be commended for my diligence, and that it was obvious I must be very allergic if I was still managing to get sick from peanuts even with all I was doing to stay safe.
The allergist wasn't the first person I'd heard this from. Adults my parents had attempted to explain me to found it hard to believe that I could be as allergic as they said I was if they didn't have at least one horror story about a doctor pulling me back from the brink.
I don't like having reactions. They hurt. A lot. I think it makes sense that I go out of my way to avoid them.
My parents convinced the allergist that I should be tested anyway, just to humor them. We didn't get the results of the test until a few days later, by phone call, when we were back home. Which is too bad, because I would have liked to watch his face when he learned that yes, I did in fact have a severe allergy, yes, it was bad enough to be lethal, and yes, I did need a service dog.
If I was diabetic or asthmatic or something I wouldn't have to tell people a near-death horror story to make them believe me. It's irritating that I need to do so for an allergy.

Okay, I'll prove it!

As some of you may know, last year I dropped out of public school to be home schooled and study for a GED because I didn't like the way the school system was handling my allergy. And by handling, I mean determinedly ignoring in the hope it would just go away. Apparently, imposing any kind of anti-peanut rule would actually be detrimental to me because it would "give me a false sense of security" and I "wouldn't know how to keep myself safe in the real world." 

For the record, learning how to decipher an ingredients list is learning to keep myself safe in the real world. Leaving the room every time we play a quiz game with candy is not. 

At some point I mentioned to someone that I actually had a disability and therefore they were being real dicks not even trying to include me in things. They more or less laughed in my face. (I say more or less because I'm not sure if that little scoffing sound adults make when a child has just said something hilariously incorrect really counts as a laugh.)

Well, you know what? My school really pissed me off, so now I'm going to prove it!!!

http://www.capenews.net/communities/sandwich/news/273

Personally, I don't get why everyone finds it so hard to believe. I have to carry an EpiPen everywhere. I have to triple-check that all my food is safe. If I mess up I could get very sick and need to be rushed to the hospital, or even die. Before I got Poodleface I had several small reactions a week, mostly painful skin rashes, from touching contaminated surfaces. My allergy clearly puts restraints on my life. 

From behind enemy lines

I like to stay up-to-date on allergy news, so in addition to checking out the articles in the Health section every time I'm on CNN, I regularly Google for news about peanut allergies with all the search terms I can think of, and I always read the comments. Occasionally I'll also come across a mother's blog about her peanut-allergic children, one of the things that inspired me to start a blog of my own, and it's nice to know that there are others who have the same problems.
Given my obvious stand on the issue of food allergies, there are some things in my search history that would confuse the heck out of any secret agents hacking my computer. Not only do I search for articles that say peanut allergies are real, I also search for ones that say they're all faked. In addition to making my blood boil, they tell me the kind of misconceptions I need to be on the lookout for. Here are the things I've discovered:

1. "Food allergies are a figment of the imagination of hysterical parents." This one is annoyingly hard to disprove in any sort of logical argument. It's a stereotype, and even if it wasn't, a certain amount of hysteria is justified when you have a severely allergic child.
2. "Most people who claim to have a food allergy really just don't like that food." I once saw a cartoon where a muppet-like creature claimed to be allergic to flour when it was raw, but not when it was baked into cookies, because he didn't want to have to help bake them but still wanted to eat them. It's a trick I'm sure lots of small children have pulled to attempt to get out of eating vegetables. This one's also annoying in that I'm sure the person at one point met or heard about a kid who did just that, but I would say to them that the difference between the two is that the faker will seem joyful about the whole thing, while the truthful child will honestly feel left out. 
3. "If the kid is that allergic then what the hell are they doing out in the world?" Also annoying, because, as much as I hate to admit it, they have a point. However, I have a counter-point: "Would you have me live my life by internet proxy from the 'safety' of my living room sofa because you can't wait five minutes to open a peanut butter cup? Would you also light up a smoke in front of an asthmatic because it's 'their problem'?"
4. "My kid has a right to eat peanut butter!" This one doesn't annoy me so much as it makes me weep for the future of our nation. Your kid also has a right to keep and bear arms, but we have anti-gun policies around school zones because no one likes it when kids get hurt and/or killed. 
5. "Oh come on. It's not that bad." I must admit, I didn't get this one off the internet but instead heard it from various teachers, acquaintances, and family members. Very annoying, to say the least. Don't talk down to me until you've walked a mile in my shoes, or until you've spent an evening throwing up because those cookies, unbeknownst to you, were made in a facility that also processes peanuts. Oh, and then there's the migraine. You'll have one of those too. Not to mention a flu-like fatigue and most likely a rash.

As infuriating as it is for me to read about these things, the comment section usually makes me smile and nod in agreement. Even in the stronghold of the enemy there are plenty of people willing to tell their stories in an attempt to discredit everything they've just read. 

Candy corn

Today I would like to talk about something that's been bugging me for years.
Candy corn.
Halloween has never been an easy time for me. Someone would always take me trick or treating, but it was never as fun as they made it look on tv. Not only does my family live in a cold place that makes it impossible to trick or treat without a coat, I had to stand on people's doorsteps and watch them drop things into my bag I knew I could never eat. At home my father would sort my candy and give me dimes for anything suspect, usually leaving me with nothing but tootsie rolls. I hated it.
But when I was seven, when my parents started giving me an allowance, I realized that I could tag along on grocery trips and buy myself an entire bag of Halloween candy that I knew was safe, and I could have it any time in October, no need to wait. I probably drove my parents up the wall with my constant sugar high, but that's not the point.
The point is, I nearly always picked candy corn. And even better than candy corn (if possible) were those little orange pumpkins that taste exactly the same but are bigger and feel nicer to bite into. I loved those. I brought them to school in my lunch box all October and for a long time after, until I'd eaten every last one that I'd bought with every last penny I'd found in the couch. Candy corn was a tradition with me, a comforting "at least" I could always go back to. "I couldn't eat half the things at the class party this year, but at least I've got half a bag of candy corn waiting for me at home!"
And what did they do? Oh, nothing much, only went and changed their manufacturing locations! So now, instead of ending with yellow dye number five, the list of ingredients ends with a warning about traces of peanuts!
HOW DARE THEY!!! Do they not realize they've driven a stake through the hearts of millions of allergic children? Can they not comprehend the sadness they are raining over the nation? "Contains peanuts" is bad enough, but "may contain peanuts" sounds like something a school yard bully would say. "Ooh, these may contain peanuts! You've loved them all your life, want to take a chance?"
But after I'd had my initial shocked temper tantrum in the candy aisle (I've gotta say, you get strange looks when you flip the bird to a bag of candy. In my defense, I was only fourteen.) I decided to relax, breathe deeply, and take to the internet. Surely there was someone, somewhere, who would sell me some peanut-free candy corn.
Actually, no. There wasn't.
It's September and they're starting to stock the Halloween candy again. Once again I'm going to see advertisements and holiday specials about all the things I can't do. But this year, once again, I'm going to have to do it without my comforting "at least." I can no longer have candy corn.
At least I have a blog to complain to.

Medical alert

Read any article about parenting with peanut allergies and you'll undoubtedly find instructions to get your child a wardrobe filled with PEANUT FREE warnings in bold-face print, or at the very least a medical alert charm. Am I the only one who looks at these things and feels like I'm painting a giant red bulls-eye on my forehead?
I got teased for being allergic to peanuts. I got harassed for it. Teachers smiled and brushed me off when I mentioned it in elementary school, and by high school they were no longer smiling and instead of the metaphorical brush-off I was getting a shove back towards my desk. Everyone's always acted like a peanut allergy was a shameful thing, so why would I want to brand myself and announce it to the world?
I wince internally whenever anyone stops me to talk about service dogs. I can't imagine a  lifetime of people asking me why I'm wearing a medical alert tag. Maybe I'm basing my expectations on small-town prejudice, but until I grow up and can move somewhere bigger that's my reality.
And have you looked at these charms? Attempt to buy one from Amazon and you'll get a sea of merrily dancing peanuts under the words PEANUT ALLERGY in cheerful print. Am I the only one who wants to vomit? Switch to Google and you'll receive a slew of links, most of which will offer to sell you a medical alert charm MADE FROM GOLD OR SILVER. Not only can I not afford that, I don't want my most expensive piece of jewelry to be the one telling the world what's wrong with me! That's not a respectable-looking lifesaving device, that's a piece of bling! And now I'm disgusted and freaked out and slightly nauseous and ready to give the whole thing up in favor of a nice game of Tetris, which is thankfully free of dancing nuts.
And where would I wear it? Around my wrist? I hate bracelets. In my ears? Okay, why are there even medical alert tags for your ears? Do EMTs know to check there? And what if you're wearing your hair down? Around my neck? Maybe, possibly, I could consider that, if I could find something not crafted from a precious metal and that didn't make me feel like I'd accidentally put on my dog's collar this morning!
It doesn't exactly help that I keep running into people who scoff at the idea that an ALLERGY could be a DISABILITY. It REALLY doesn't help that I was taught by these people until ELEVENTH GRADE, at which point I left the school district because my only other alternative was to passionately hate myself for daring to have this allergy.
Where was I again? Ah yes, hating on medical alert charms.
It all seems so complicated. I would want to keep it hidden, but how would that help me in an emergency? Would people know to look under my shirt for the charm I'd tucked out of sight? And why do I need to wear a charm in the first place when anyone can look into my purse and see two EpiPens and a dozen Benadryl tablets? It wouldn't be that hard to figure out what was wrong with me.
I dunno. I'm in no way a medical expert, just an irritated teen ranting on her blog. Don't opt out of one just 'cause of me.
Has anyone ever had a positive experience with one? And if so, where do you wear it?