Eli and the Food Allergies

Any holiday with food is a bit of a minefield for our family, but none so much as Halloween. It is rife with interesting things like the fact that most candy has Eli’s allergens, different sizes of candy have different ingredients, there can be little or no label on some small candies, and more! One…

I can’t believe how long it’s been since I last wrote. Time is racing past me this year! In terms of Eli’s treatment, school has been a big adjustment.  Eli is required to eat a large amount of food every morning as a part of his maintenance and conditioning his body for the eventual introduction…

Someday I plan to do a tasting menu of all of the food Eli had to eat for this program. Some are things we’ve heard of but never had to eat in volume, like chia and poppy seeds, while others feel wilder and strange, like mare’s milk and quail egg (in the future, donkey’s milk,…

We just returned from our 4th trip to the Food Allergy Institute! Between our last appointment and this one, we’ve been dosing Eli with denatured mare’s milk (horse) and mustard seed. At this next set of appointments (two over the course of two days) Eli challenged his dosing foods and was introduced to his two,…

I run a non-profit called The Young Artist’s Club, and strangely enough, it would not exist without Eli’s food allergies. I think, had Eli not had food allergies, I would have just volunteered in both of my kids’ classrooms and never done more. That is what I had been doing with my oldest son who…

In addition to tree nuts, Eli is allergic to milk and eggs. Baking without eggs and milk is, by far, one of the hardest transitions we made. When I first tried baking without eggs and milk, it was so frustrating. It felt like, for awhile there, that I would never be able to have good…

Eli wasn’t much of a breakfast eater before this program. Now, because of all of the maintenance foods and timing requirements, he eats a fairly large breakfast most mornings.  Every morning he eats maintenance foods (foods he has challenged in the clinic that will condition his body to tolerate his allergens). Right now, I bake…

We are Christians, and Christians participate in sacraments that bring us together and help us remember who and what we believe in, they draw us closer together as believers. Many of these sacraments are ancient things done in various denominations right now and throughout history, time, and the world. One of those sacraments is communion,…

Our third appointment was another one that Adam, my husband, took Eli to and was only a one day appointment. Because these appointments happen all year long, and it is during the school year, we try to keep the trips as short as possible. They fly down one day, stay the night in a hotel,…

What does it mean to really include another person? We see the term inclusion thrown around a lot, at least in the education world that I inhabit. The goal of inclusion is to ensure that all people, regardless of disabilities, are able to be included. It is a simple, but very difficult goal.  I think…