Being Allergic to Aluminum Stinks

I’ve spent the last week looking for my deodorant in all my usual stores. It’s not there. I’m afraid it’s gone for good.

I’m frustrated. I’m irritated. And in a few weeks when my last stick runs out, I’ll be smelly, too.

It stinks when you find a product you depend on, and suddenly either the stores stop selling it or the manufacturer stops making it.

I’m allergic to some metals, including aluminum. That makes it impossible for me to use antiperspirants, because they use an aluminum salt to work. I can wear deodorants that don’t include an antiperspirant, but all they seem to do is apply a little chemical-smelling perfume in an effort to out-smell the B.O. I’ve tried a bunch of them – including the infamous crystal – and none of them worked at all. It’s a sticky problem.

Then one sweet, happy day, I found an Adidas deodorant that uses something they call “Cotton-Tech.” Finally, something that works with my body chemistry! I love it. I depend on it. I can’t live without it. And now, I can’t find it. I can’t even locate a phone number to call to see if they still make it. Something’s rotten in the state of deodorants, I tell you.

This morning, I hunted online and found two online stores that appear to carry it. I guess I’ll have to pay a small fortune to have a dozen or so shipped to me, and I’ll keep my fingers crossed that the product arrives as advertised. If not, I’ll end up with a dozen sticks of something I can’t use. I worry that the shippers will substitute something they think looks similar. Do I smell a conspiracy? And I’ve learned that sometimes these stores are just getting rid of the remaining stock of a discontinued product, so this might be the end of my deodorant story. That’s the pits.

I wish stores had the flexibility to be more responsive to smaller groups of customers. There are a growing number of people who are trying to avoid aluminum now because of the suspected link to Alzheimer’s disease, and I’m sure I’m not the only person allergic to aluminum. I know that’s why Adidas gave this aluminum-free deodorant a chance. But I guess we still aren’t big enough of a group to convince the marketing arm of Adidas that they should continue to support this product.

I realize that retail economies force stores to carry only products that fit the largest number of customers, and large manufacturers will only continue to produce products that sell to a giant target base. If they don’t catch a whiff of success on the first try, they are quick to pull the plug.

Food allergic people are, unfortunately, becoming a larger target audience every day, so slowly but surely we’re sniffing out a few new products and resources every year that cater to us. But those of us with metal allergies are still pretty small in number, so I guess I’ll just have to be patient and bide my time until stores cater to me again.

In the meantime, I plan to support those online retailers and hope I get what I order. And if I don’t, you might want to stand upwind.

Relaxing at the Arts Festival

The Utah Arts Festival was this past weekend in Salt Lake City. On Saturday I went by myself, because I was speaking on a panel about the “writerly life” sponsored by the SLCC Community Writing Center. But Sunday was even more fun, because that’s when I took my son.

My son and I love to go to arts festival – we wander through the booths, looking at paintings, photography, pottery, and sculptures. We laugh at the funny things we see (and the funny people). We hit the Maui Wowi stand for an icy fruit smoothie. We listen to music. We pick out the things we’d buy if we were rich, like that really cool inlaid wood coffee table that was in three curvy triangular sections that could be pulled out into separate tables. Yeah, definitely that. And maybe that glass vase in shades of gold and turquoise. And the earrings with the silver doodads for me. And for my son, the garden sculpture made from an old army helmet that looked like a little creature driving a tank.

We stopped to listen to a guy playing a Chapman Stick – a stringed instrument that kind of combines both a guitar and a bass. We wandered through the children’s art yard, even though my son is getting a tad too big for the activities. He still liked playing the large variety of musical instruments from around the world that were set out for kids to try – especially the Chinese gong, which he whacked with great zeal. OK, I admit it. I tried it, too. I had never banged a real gong before, and really, that’s something you should definitely do before you die, right?

So we had a great time, just the two of us. (Dad’s on a business trip, so he missed out.)

At arts festivals like this, food is always ubiquitous. There are lots of food stands with culinary choices ranging from Thai food to Navajo tacos, pizza to crepes, Greek souvlaki to grilled corn on the cob. Usually, those food booths are clustered in just one area, which makes it easy to avoid. But for some reason, those cinnamon-roasted almond stands get scattered throughout the fair. They smell wonderful, but they always make me nervous when I walk by them.

This year, I noticed a nonprofit group was raising money by selling PB&J sandwiches and cold milk for $2. They had a booth in the food area, but they also hit upon an even more enterprising idea – they had a guy pulling a little wagon through the festival, selling the sandwiches from his wagon.

As marketing goes, it’s a great idea. Get the kid food out to where the kids are melting down. What’s more brilliant than that? When my son’s blood sugar drops, he gets really whiney and argumentative. If we’re out somewhere and it’s been too long since he ate, I’ve found that a quick soda (even though I’m not a big soda fan) is a great antidote to his downward-spirally attitude. He becomes a new kid almost instantly. So bringing PB&Js out to the masses is a great idea. I bet it saved a lot of temper tantrums this weekend.

But it still made me a little nervous to see that wagon driving around the booths. On the other hand, it only made me a LITTLE nervous. That’s when I realized how much my son is growing up. A few years ago, the sight of that wagon would have sent my heart pounding. But he’s old enough now, he’s not going to pick up a half-eaten sandwich off the ground and put it in his mouth. He’s not going to handle everything he sees. Of course, he did still pick up that gong mallet and strike a mighty blow with it. And who knows who handled that mallet before him?

But I realized that as he gets older, I’ve become much more relaxed in environments like the Arts Festival. I stay prepared, with his medicine and wet wipes handy. And I point out things like the roasted almond stand so that he’s aware of his environment and can take precautions. But it’s so nice to feel like we’re both watching out for him together, instead of me watching out for him, and him hell-bent on turning my hair gray.

So if you’re a parent of a toddler with allergies, take heart. It really does get easier as he gets older.

Of course, when he becomes a teenager, I’ll probably take that statement back. For a lot of reasons. But I’m not going to think about that just yet, okay?

Children’s Menus Are My Friends

I don’t want my baby to grow up. And not just for the normal reasons, like hormones, teenage angst, driver’s license agonies, and dating.

No, my concern is much bigger: I don’t want him to stop ordering off the children’s menu.

Yep, that’s right. I’m that shallow.

I like that he’s still 9 and still content with mac and cheese, chicken nuggets, and burgers. That makes me happy—and not just because it only costs $5 (although that is certainly a nice bonus). My main problem is that once he starts ordering off the adult menu, it’s going to be a lot harder controlling the cross-contamination with nuts.

After all these years of navigating kids’ menus, I’ve gotten pretty comfortable with where we can eat and what he can order. And the chance of cross-contamination is minimal – when they dump frozen nuggets onto a plate and microwave it, there’s a lot less chance that they will somehow mix with the walnut-vinaigrette dressing on the adult salad.

But now that he’s getting older and more adventurous in his eating habits (“Look, Mom, they have grilled shrimp!”), the possibility of his food coming into contact with nuts will begin to go up dramatically.

When he was really little, the only foods he ate were Cheerios, grapes, and chicken nuggets. Every night for a whole week in Hawaii when he was 2, I cooked chicken nuggets in the hotel microwave, cut them up, put them in a baggie, and took them with us to restaurants. He was happy with his baggie of chicken, and his dad and I dined on lovely restaurant fare in peace.

That was easy.

Now I realize that soon he’s not going to be satisfied with a hot dog from the children’s menu when he knows there’s a sirloin steak on the very next page. I guess I knew that this time would come eventually. It was too much to ask that he would go off to college with a box of baggies and a Costco bag of nuggets.

Last night, we went to a barbeque place for dinner, and I asked the server about the barbeque sauce, the meat, and all the places where nuts might be lurking. My son loves barbequed meat, so I knew I had to be prepared for him to tackle the adult side of the menu.

Then what does he do? Orders a bowl of mac and cheese.

Maybe I’ve got another year or two before my baby grows up, after all.

Hidden Allergens in Unexpected Places

Last week, our Davis County Chapter of UFAN had our monthly meeting. As usually happens, our discussion bounced from topic to topic like a 6-year-old on a Skittles overdose. We tossed around ideas for dealing with nursery and preschool teachers who just can’t seem to grasp the concept of keeping unsafe snacks out of the reach of toddlers. We talked about how some parents of classmates will always forget and send in peanut butter no matter how many times they’re reminded. Then we talked about the unexpected places we’ve found food allergens.

I’ve been dealing with my son’s peanut and tree nut allergies for eight years now, but I still learn new things to worry about. The new danger I learned about at last week’s meeting? Top soil. Apparently, nut manufacturers have to do something with all those nut shells, so they grind them and mix them into top soil, potting soil, or even some fertilizers. I guess I never thought about what happens to all those shells. I’m all for recycling and conservation, but the thought of ground-up nut shells under my son’s feet makes me more than a little worried.

Here are some other unexpected places where our support group’s members have found food allergens, especially nuts, milk, and eggs:

• Body lotions, creams, and moisturizers
• Exfoliants
• Shampoos and conditioners
• Soap
• Shaving creams
• Makeup
• Nail polish fast-dry
• Household cleaners
• Toothpaste
• Dentist office toothpaste and polishes
• Vaccinations and shots (many are egg-based)
• Bird seed
• The sand in sand & water tables (often uses crushed nut shells)
• Livestock bedding
• Beanbags (including some beanbag chairs, hacky sacks, etc.)
• Ant traps and mousetraps
• Potpourris
• Scented candles

I found a similar, but even more comprehensive list, on the website for F.A.I.T.H., an Alabama-based food allergy group.

After you’ve lived with food allergies for a while, reading ingredients labels on grocery items becomes second nature. But Wednesday’s meeting reminded me that I have to remember to read labels on everything my son comes into contact with, not just the things he eats.

At Long Last, Summer!

Ah, summer! School ended on the last day of May, so we’re officially one week into our summer break now. Is there any time of year more full of anticipation than the beginning of summer? Endless weeks of sunshine and adventure stretches before us like an untracked beach. And after a long, snowy winter and this cold, dreary spring, summer’s arrival is as welcome as a long-lost friend.

I know a lot of parents are already counting the days until school starts again, but I’m not one of them. Maybe it’s because my husband and I only have one kid, but I don’t dread having him home. In fact, I relish it! To hear other moms talk, perhaps I’m an aberration, but I actually enjoy spending time with my son the Whirlwind. He’s always finding ways to make me laugh.

We share a love of adventure, a sense of humor, and a hunger for new experiences, and summer is full of all of these. So I try to arrange my writing jobs so that I can spend as much time playing with him as possible.

We’re already had our first adventure of the summer – a trip to our family cabin on a lake in Wisconsin. (We just got back this morning at 2:00 am, in fact.) Although the weather was cool and cloudy, we still had plenty of fun visiting relatives and friends, fishing, hiking in the woods, and passing the evenings with puzzles, videos, and card games while watching sunsets over the water.

Now we’re back home and spending a few days with one of the Whirlwind’s cousins. Next up – a weekend in Colorado to visit more friends. Then it’s a couple of months of swim lessons, skateboarding, camping, field trips to museums and nature parks around the area, concerts, swimming, arts festivals, another cousin visit … and that’s just the stuff we know about. I’m sure there will also be birthday parties and picnics, sleepovers and movies, cookouts and fireworks.

It’s busy, but it’s all the stuff the makes life joyous instead of drudgery. I’ve got my bag packed with sunblock, water bottles, EpiPens, a camera, and a notebook, so I’m ready to make the most of these fleeting summer weeks. All too soon, August will be ending, that school bell will be ringing, and we’ll be thinking, “Where did the summer go?”

But I refuse to think about that now. At this moment, summer’s here, I’m wiggling my toes in the sunshine, the Whirlwind is splashing in the pool with his cousin, and life is so very, very good.

A Bully’s New Weapon

I’m heading out on vacation in an hour, so I’m posting this week’s blog a little early…

Last week, I mentioned that one of my worries is that someday a bully might try to harm my son by smearing peanut butter on him in school. That’s not a worry I just made up. Just a few weeks ago, a teen student in Kentucky was charged with a felony after putting peanut butter cookie crumbs into another student’s lunch box with the intent to harm him.

In other cases, children have actually smeared peanut butter on allergic kids, threatened to smear them, or threatened to force peanut products into their mouths. A couple of years ago, a student threatened to hold his teacher down and force a Nutter Butter down her throat.

It’s not that these bullies are worse than other bullies. It’s simply that they’ve found a new addition to the typical bully arsenal of physical and emotional weapons. (See this article from Canada, for examples of this bold new world of bullyism.)

The blog world is a-buzz with this latest cookie crumb case and other stories like it. Here are just a few interesting posts worth checking out, including one from Rush Limbaugh. (Yes, every once in a while, planets align in mysterious ways, and in this particular case, Rush and I actually agree on something.)

MomLogic (a mom talks about how both of her allergic kids have been "peanut bullied" at school)

Peanut Free Mama (readers comment on whether they think the felony charge is too harsh)

Rush Limbaugh (Transcript of a phone call where he responds to a woman asking his opinion of the “craziness of the nut allergy people)

Kids Food Allergies Blog (a parent discusses the contrast between Rush Limbaugh’s take and the patently absurd Harper’s article which tries to dismiss peanut allergies as a national hysteria instead of a medical reality – which makes me so angry I can’t talk about it right now… stay tuned for a future blog entry on that)

It’s easy to get emotional about bullying. It’s an age-old problem, and one that will never go away, because human beings are human beings, and that means someone will always be trying to find ways to feel powerful over someone else. It’s unfortunate that they’ve found a new weapon, but it isn’t surprising. Bullies can be just as creative as the next guy. Too bad they can’t channel their ambitions in a more positive manner.

This does mean that we, as parents of allergic kids, have one more thing to teach our children about when it comes to facing bullies in the school. Same problem, different variation. But we can do it, and our kids are strong.

Do I Worry? Duh!

Natalie Williams, a pediatric psychology resident at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, is conducting an Internet-based survey to learn more about the challenges faced by parents of children with food allergies. The survey asks questions about parenting issues, parent worries and concerns, and child emotions and behaviors. She’s asking everyone who is a primary caregiver of a food-allergic child to take her survey so she can help develop the body of knowledge about how food allergies affect the daily lives of children and their parents. (Do take the survey. It’s here.)

I just participated in the survey, and it was interesting to see the types of questions being asked. Sometimes, however, I wasn’t sure how to answer a question. For example, I was supposed to indicate if “I worry about my child’s future,” and the choices were “Never,” “Sometimes,” and “Often.”

The thing is, I do worry about my child’s future, but not usually in relation with his food allergies. I worry about his ability to control his rambunctious, high-energy, emotional approach to life so that he fits in a little better with his colleagues when he enters the workforce. I worry that he’ll inherit a world polluted beyond the limits of human health. I worry that he’ll lose his fascination with science and sports and end up being sucked into the black hole of video games when I no longer have control of his schedule. I worry that a girl will break his heart. I worry that he’ll be lured in by drugs. I worry that he’ll be lured in by a religious cult. I worry that he’ll be lured in by a traveling circus.

I look at the world he’s growing up in, and I am wracked with concern that the America I love is becoming the laughing-stock of the world because we’ve lost sight of some fundamental human values like acceptance, charity, education, and support, and replaced them with political charades like intolerance, greed, territorialism, and prejudice. I worry that we’ve become a society more interested in which big-bosomed gold-digger marries the jerk on some reality TV show than in whether or not the majority of Americans can afford basic health care. I worry that I’ll be hit by a bus and won’t be there to help guide him to adulthood. I worry that he’ll get his feelings hurt at school.

I worry that he won’t be able to get a scholarship to college, and that the amount of money I have managed to save for his college so far won’t buy him a venti latte at Starbucks when he finally gets to campus. I worry that he won’t make the high school soccer team, even though he’s only in third grade right now. I worry that the city of Venice may sink into the sea before the dollar strengthens enough so that I can take my son there to see it. I worry that he’ll get nibbled by a barracuda the next time he goes snorkeling. I worry that his hormones are about to kick in, and I’m not going to be a patient enough mom to handle that. I worry that he’ll want to buy a motorcycle someday.

And yes, I worry that he’ll eat something with nuts in it someday and have a bad reaction before help arrives. I worry that before too long, he’ll be out of my reach, and traveling through hazelnut-infested countries without me. I worry that he’ll kiss a girl who’s eaten a peanut butter cookie. I worry that his kids might someday have even worse food allergies than him. I worry that he’ll make a student mad at school someday, and that kid will smear peanut butter on him to get even. Of course, I also worry that the angry kid will skip the peanut butter smearing and just haul off and paste my son with a mean left hook. Kids find ways to hurt each other, and the weapons change to suit the moment.

So there are a lot of reasons why I worry about his future. Only some of them are food-allergy related. Most of them are typical parent worries, and I think most parents lie awake at night dreaming up disasters we have no business dreaming up. My dad said his grandmother used to lie awake at night worrying that someday her husband might want to move the family to a ranch with an open cow tank, and maybe her kid would fall into it and drown. She would worry about this, even though they weren’t moving and had no plans to move. And I thought I worried unnecessarily.

It will be interesting to see the results of this survey. I wonder if we food-allergy parents really worry more than other parents, or if we all worry the same amount and just have a few variations based on our own particular circumstances.

I wish I didn’t worry quite so much. But when they handed me that adorable little caterwauling bundle of joy at the hospital nine and a half years ago, the doctor said, “Congratulations, it’s a boy. And along with him, here’s your bag of worries, your box of obsessions, your knapsack of fears, and your suitcase of paranoia. Enjoy him!”

And I do enjoy him, despite all the worries. He’s worth every moment of it.