2018 was a huge year for me in terms of personal growth and new life experiences. I overcame several obstacles with my allergies this year: managing my allergies at college, while doing weekly baking activities at summer camp, on several day trips, and for two whole weeks in China. And above all of these experiences, I even had the opportunity to speak at the FARECon Teen Summit.

No obstacle of 2018 will compare to my first anaphylactic reaction at college. For months I have thought about how I wanted to post about the incident, but I just didn’t have the courage. It didn’t feel right to talk about this mistake I made with my allergies on a space where I was dedicated to showing how fully you could live your life with being limited by your food allergies. But I realized that it is important to accept that in life, everything will not always be safe. There will come a day when you make a mistake as a person with food allergies. I hope that by sharing this story, others will understand what a moderate reaction looks like and why allergic people must take all the precautions that they do.

August 27th. It was 8:30 on the night before classes started, and I was eating a food that I didn’t read the label of when all the sudden I realized that it was crunchy. I checked the label and saw the word “walnut” in the ingredients list and was freaked out. I hadn’t had a reaction in 9 years and I could feel in my soul that although I only had one bite, I was in for a long night. I immediately went to student health even though I did not show many symptoms at the time. I had no visible skin symptoms but my throat and tongue felt like they were swelling up. They gave me benedryl and prednisone as an attempt to cure my mild reaction and sent me back to my dorm room. At this point it was around 10pm. I tried to go to sleep that night at around 11pm but things just didn’t feel right inside of me. At 1am, I decided to get out of bed because my skin felt like it was on fire and I wasn’t sleeping well. I used my phone flashlight to look at myself and discovered that my normal pale skin was replaced by bright red hives and welts. These symptoms plus the swelling of my throat and tingly lips from earlier caused me to take my roommate back with me to student health. There, they told me that they couldn’t help me and that if I wanted to self-inject my epinephrine, they would call the ambulance. I decided that that route would be the safest. I got to Christiana Hospital at around 2am and then waited in a hospital bed in the hallway for nearly three hours before they finally brought me to a room. As the epinephrine worked its magic, my skin became warm and speckled as the hives faded. They monitored my vitals and told me that I would be fine. By 4:45, I was finally moved to my own room. They kept me for another hour to ensure that I was safe for a total of 4 hours after receiving the epinephrine. I was discharged at 6am and walked into the lobby where I saw another UD student who had been discharged 30 minutes ago and was told that the UD police should have been there to pick us up . After waiting for 30 minutes for the UD Police escort back to campus, my roommate called an Uber for us to get back, since that would be more reliable. We got back on campus at 7am and I made it to my 8am class on time despite the wildest all-nighter I could have ever imagined. Throughout the rest of the day, the buzz from the epinephrine diminished and eventually my lack of sleep caught up with me. I made it through all of my classes and I fell asleep directly after my 8pm choir call-back that night, and I got more sleep than I would get for the rest of my busy semester.

Allergic reactions are one of the scariest things you can endure. Their impact changes you both physically and mentally. If you’ve ever taken a “True Colors” personality test, you’d know that “Gold” people like having control and being organized. As someone who fits this “Gold” personality, I had the worst time with the idea that I couldn’t control what was going on in my body. Sure I took care of myself as soon as I recognized my mistakes. But I didn’t know that my reaction would be bi-phasic and that I would get worse in two hours. Sure I self-injected my Auvi-Q, but as I laid there on the bed at student health waiting for the ambulance to arrive and my symptoms got worse and worse, my fear of impending doom took my emotions on a trip. I had done all that I could but it was not enough. It is incredibly taxing to be stuck hoping that your symptoms would end and not being able to control what was going to happen to you. The lack of control and predictability is something that I never thought about when I thought about having allergic reactions. I am so lucky that I was able to be stabilized by the epinephrine auto-injector and that I did not need to be hospitalized with IV fluids, but it was still a serious and scary way to start my semester. After I got back into my normal routine, eating became scarier than it had ever been. Getting myself to trust that other people would be able to keep me safe and give me allergen-free food was really stressful. What if they made a mistake? What if I made another mistake? I had to learn to look past these anxious worries and bring myself back to the mindset that I was going to be served safe food.

Looking into 2019, I hope that this year brings me more opportunities to grow. With my new year’s resolution of being more positive and intentional about everything I do, I hope to avoid as many risky situations for my allergies while still giving myself opportunities to challenge myself in other aspects of life. While I am home for Winter Break, I also hope to create more content for my YouTube channel and stay more active on my blog. Good luck to all of you for the upcoming year!

Christmas is a great time to get together with family and friends, but often Christmas parties and activities involve lots of food, baking, and other risky things for those of us with food allergies.  Luckily, non-food seasonal activities can be just as fun.  Here are 10 of my favorite winter activities that don’t involve food:

1. Making snowflakes.  Nothing is more wintery than making snowflakes, and there are so many creative ways to do this, that the fun might never end.  This is my favorite kind of snowflake to make.
2. Taking a Christmas lights tour.  Some people go crazy hanging up Christmas lights, and you get to appreciate all of their hard work for free.  Take a drive with your friends around the area and maybe you’ll find a house that has lights coordinated with music!
3. Play in the snow.  If you are lucky enough to get snow during your Christmas break, cherish the moment, channel your inner child, and go crazy.  Any chance you have to sing “Do you Want to Build a Snowman?” while actually building a snowman is a great time.
4. Decorate the Christmas Tree. I look forward to decorating the tree with my family each year.  Our tree is filled with such an amazing mix-match of ornaments that really tell the story of all the places we’ve gone and things we’ve enjoyed and reliving those memories is so heart-warming.
5. Ice Skating. There’s just something special about going to an outdoor ice skating rink with your friends that makes it so especially Christmassy.  Even if the only rink you have access to is indoors, the experience will still be exciting.
6. Go Christmas Caroling.  I LOVE singing, and nothing is better than walking through a neighborhood with a group of friends while you sing your favorite Christmas carols and spread Christmas cheer.
7. Make craft kits. Back in elementary school you always made some cheap foam craft to give to your parents as a present. Now that you are older, these crafts are just as fun, and will look even nicer with your big-kid craft skills.  They make all kinds of kits, including food-free gingerbread! 
8. Go to the Mall.  If you’ve ever wondered what absolute mayhem looks like, its the mall during the week before Christmas.  Whether you go on a hunt for the perfect gift, ugliest sweater, or even just sit on a bench and people watch, malls are the place to be in December.
9. Watch Christmas movies.  Everyone has their favorite Christmas movie, so why not share yours with the people you enjoy? You’ll never know what new classic might be added to your yearly watch list (my favorite is Olive, the Other Reindeer)!
10. Volunteer somewhere.  Christmas is a time of goodwill, sharing, and selflessness after all!  Volunteer at a local shelter, help sort donations at a soup kitchen, run an activity at a local retirement community, write letters to those stuck in the hospital, knit a hat for someone in need, the possibilities are endless!

Happy Holidays everyone!

After returning from my two weeks abroad, I worked the remaining weeks of the summer as a camp counselor at a local Girl Scout Day Camp.  Since the campers pack their own lunches, I did not realize that food allergies would become as much of an issue as they were, but alas, my knowledge became very useful as my fellow counselors and I dealt with various campers.

On the Friday before each new week of camp, each counselor was given an hour to work with their co-counselor to plan activities for the upcoming week.  One of the requirements that we had to fulfill for each week’s schedule was making two snacks every week.  During our planning hour, we received a roster with the number of campers we had as well as any pertinent health information about the campers.  This roster would list any allergies that campers had put on their medical forms.  When we were choosing which theme-related snacks we wanted to make during the following week, it was great to know these restrictions up front.  Since I was one of two counselors with allergies, many of the other counselors would ask me for advice in choosing which foods they could use so that their campers with allergies could be included.  It was a great advocacy experience for me, and it really increased the respect that I had for the camp counselors that I had as a child who didn’t hold me back due to my allergies.

One of the hardest parts about camp was the fact that we never knew what supplies we would have until the day of.  So, sometimes we did not necessarily get what we needed on our supply request form.  During Nature Explorers week, we were making a bird’s nest snack where we stacked pretzel sticks, held them together with chocolate, and placed three jelly beans inside as the eggs.  Now I had a girl with a nut allergy this week which I recorded on the form, but the jumbo jelly beans we got said that they “may contain traces of peanuts”, so we did not give them to the allergic child as a safety precaution.  She was pretty upset about being left out, and the next day at drop off, her mom handed me a note that basically said “thank you for your concern for my child, but she can eat things that say may contain and I don’t want you excluding her from getting snacks all week”.  This situation was really frustrating for me, and luckily all future snacks for the week had no issues.  I spoke to the camp director about this incident and we discussed making a change to the allergy form that the campers submit for next year, and in the meantime, making sure that the foods we are given are completely free from any potential cross-contact for the allergic girls each following week.

One of the most exceptional experiences that I’ve had in college has been a two week trip to China with the UD Symphony Orchestra.  Traveling away from home for any period of time is scary when you have allergies, and when you go somewhere that has a language barrier, it makes things even scarier.  As someone who is allergic to sesame, nuts, and shellfish, I never really ate much more than edamame and rice at Asian restaurants back at home so I really did not know what to expect as far as eating.  After traveling there, I can confirm that it was very difficult at times to find food.  In addition to barriers of communication, and cuisine, the Chinese people are also not very allergy aware.  Most food was served buffet or family style, and sometimes, there would be one serving spoon to be used with every dish!  In short, there were several days that I had to sustain myself on granola bars and white rice.

One of the scariest moments for me while I was in China occurred during the third lunch we ate in Beijing.  In China, it is typical for a teapot to be placed on the table before the meal is served, and as an avid tea drinker, I usually poured myself tea while waiting for meals to start.  At this particular lunch, I had just poured myself a cup of tea and let it cool on my saucer before drinking it.  A few tables over, one of the other orchestra members stands up and shouts “Does anybody have a peanut allergy?” to which a bunch of my friends pointed to me.  This orchestra member then informed the orchestra that the tea had peanuts in it! I had never seen tea with nuts in it before, but after this person (I still don’t know her name) saved my life, I did not drink any more tea in China unless I was able to ask what was in it first.

Luckily, I had prepared myself before the trip so that things could run smoothly. The most important part of keeping me safe was notifying the trip leaders.  Before I made a down payment, I informed the trip coordinators and they promised that I would be safe.   While in the restaurants in China, I was always with a tour guide or a UD student fluent in Chinese so that I could reduce the communication barrier between me and the food.  Another thing that helped decrease the communication barrier was creating personalized allergy cards from FARE’s website.  This also helped when we had to grab food on our own– and in one instance, it allowed me to get bubble tea all by myself since the employee could understand the card, and was very accommodating.  I also was saved on numerous occasions by packing of instant oatmeal and safe granola bars for those days when the only thing I could eat at the group meals was rice.  This intense snack packing also helped out my friend on the trip with Celiac Disease, and left me with plenty of room in my suitcase for souvenirs as I ate through my snacks. Despite several close calls, I avoided eating anything that could have been potentially dangerous and was able to experience a whole different continent and get closer with the people that I had been playing with in orchestra.  The biggest take-away from this experience for me is that no matter what struggles you go through, the experience is always more important that the food.