Monday, February 20, 2012

Today

Today I made some gluten free chocolate chip cookies because the package contains none of my sons allergens and I didn't feel like making any from scratch. My son is allergic to eggs but after passing a muffin test a few weeks back we have started him on oral immunotherapy. I can get into what that is in a post tonight or tomorrow. (I planned on doing that next but I thought I would fill you in on today first) So, the way it works is that he is still allergic to eggs but if we bake egg into the cookie, muffin or cake we can feed it to him. (As I said I will get into why that is later) We can only feed him so much in a day but I still make the full package and save it to give him over the next week. Today was particularly hard because I added the egg to this mix and put the cookies onto the cookie sheet. When they are finished I pull them out and let them cool. I had to do this several times because I decided to use a small cookie sheet. The tricky part was that when the cookies are in the dough form and placed onto the sheet he is allergic to them. When they are pulled out of the oven they are no longer in that severe allergy category. Not cross contaminating the uncooked cookies with the cooked cookies was a bit of a challenge. I ended up just not touching them at all, using gloves and utensils to assure no contact with my hands or the bowl of dough close by.  Feeding him those was also a struggle because any time you feed your allergic child something for the first time it is nerve wracking. Even if you have read the ingredients and jumped through all of the hoops to be sure it is safe, it can still be quite nerve wracking. Add on top of that that he is still allergic to eggs and I am just sort of tricking his immune system into not reacting.

After we ran our errands in town we decided to finally take our kids to Red Robin. This is the only place I let my son eat anything in our town. I bring my two children food and order them the gluten free fries because they are also the big 8 allergen free. I do the usual asking them to wipe down the table a second time explaining to them that my son has allergies. When our food comes the girl, who is not our waitress, brings our food and my sons fries. Usually they will bring them out on a separate tray so there is no cross-contamination. This time she brings everything on one tray. I notice that and get antsy and nervous but not enough to say anything. Then I notice that the paper that is under the fries has touched our food and now has mayonaise and whatever else on the paper. Now, I am not one to get angry or complain unless I have to but I waved down our waitress. I said: "The reason I asked for these fries is because my son has food allergies. She brought these fries on the same tray and it touched other food." I showed her how you could even see it on there. "If my son eats these he will end up in with a shot in the leg and in the ER" she apologizes and takes them back into the kitchen. I look over to the kitchen to see them all huddled around and the girl that brought the fries staring me down. (That upset me too but I left it alone.) The manager came out and told me that they are supposed to bring it out separately and she is sorry, it should not have happened. I told her that we always eat there and they always bring it out separately so I am not upset I just needed to send them back because I did not want my son to eat them.

Thank goodness I noticed because who knows what would have happened. That most likely would have ended badly. But, he is fine and had a blast eating out, that is what matters!

1 comment:

  1. I love how you watch him and the things that go into his mouth, like a hawk!! Good job, Momma!

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