Allergy Free Christmas!

IT’S CHRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSTTTMMMMAAAAAAAAAAAAS! :D

Okay so I’m a bit late but lots of exciting stuff has all been happening at once and I haven’t had a chance to sit down and write yet!  In the last few weeks of term everyone was rushing round to see each other, there were parties and carol services and now I’m home there are more people to visit, more parties and carol services and essay deadlines are creeping closer! Being at Uni is strange, when you come home in the holidays it feels like you have two different lives, but that’s kind of nice though :D

At Christmas it’s always fun to think back over past years and thinking back I’ve realized how things have changed for me allergy wise. Although my allergy has become more severe I feel like I’ve learnt to cope with it better and that every year yet more amazing dairy free food has been unveiled!

The fun started back in the first week of December when I got to open my advent calendar! When I was younger they didn’t make dairy free chocolate advent calendars but my mum got me a giant felt one with pockets which she filled with sweets (I totally didn’t peek ahead and eat my favorite ones first…). About three years ago though dairy free chocolate ones appeared and I got to have my first ‘proper’ advent calendar!! This year someone from my church gave me one as a present and so me and my flat mate opened them together to count down the days until Christmas, how festive! :D 

We decided to have a Christmas meal together as a flat :D Together we cooked roast chicken, roast potatoes, parsnips, sweet potato mash, brussel sprouts, broccoli, pigs in blankets and stuffing! There are only four of us. We still managed to eat it all :D We used all my equipment and made sure hands and surfaces were well cleaned so that there was no cross contamination. My flat mates are really understanding of my allergy and we cooked together so that I could double check everything.

 Whilst the final bits of food were cooking I decided to use the opportunity to do some epipen training with them. I have a terrible confession to make : I have been friends with these guys for almost a year and a half now and had still not shown any of them how to use an epipen! It sort of defeats the point if you carry around epipens and then don’t show any one you know how to use them. Whenever I have gone into anaphylactic shock I have become too faint and disorientated to use my epipen. Once when I was at a restaurant with my friends from Sixth Form I had an allergic reaction but none of my friends knew how to use my epipen. A waitress said that she had a younger brother with diabetes who she helped to inject his insulin and so she did the epipen for me. Unfortunately she held my epipen the wrong way up so that when she tried to stab it into my leg she actually ended up stabbing herself in the thumb! Apparently this is quite a common thing to happen! It resulted in us both being carted off to hospital in an ambulance, her to have her thumb drained of the adrenaline so that she didn’t have to have it amputated and me having medicine pumped into my vein in the ambulance because I hadn’t had my epipen and was even more ill than usual! It was horrible seeing my poor mum’s face when I arrived in A and E almost half an hour later than her, and I would have been far less ill than if one of my friends had been able to inject me correctly from the beginning.

I have an epipen trainer kit with a practice epipen in it, so that when I show people how to use an epipen they can actually have a go!

Here are the steps for how to use an epipen, in my own words:

1. Keep calm- I know it sounds obvious but panicking really is the worst thing to do! Just stay calm and follow the steps carefully. After you have used the epipen chat with the person whilst you wait for the ambulance

2. Pull out the blue cap and hold the epipen in your firmly in your fist

3. Draw a cross with your finger on the person’s thigh so that you know where to aim for on their thigh (where the points of the cross meet)

4. Stab the epipen firmly into this point on the leg and listen for a click

5. Hold it in for ten seconds and then pull it out. Massage the area for a couple of minutes.

6. Call 999, ask for an ambulance and state anaphylaxis (If there is more than one of you there then one person should call the ambulance whilst the other one injects)

Encourage the person to lie down with their legs elevated or to sit down. The ONLY place you can inject an epipen is in the thigh and you must ALWAYS call an ambulance even if they seem okay. Keep calm and keep chatty :)

I’m going to make it a goal for myself to epipen train as many people as I can this year, not just for me but for anyone else who carries an epipen :D

That was Uni Christmas; home Christmas has also involved a lot of food! When I was a little girl I remember holding hands with my dad on a walk when my family all bought ice cream and I had a Calypso and saying to him, ‘I given up on some food because I know that I’ll never be able to have it. I really want to try them but I won’t ever be able to’. If only I could back in time (Ghost of Christmas past-style) and tell seven year old me, ‘Don’t worry, the future holds Dairy Free Cornettos and Chocolate mousse!’ Here is just some of the beautiful dairy free food I’ve been able to stuff myself with this holiday- take note of the aforementioned chocolate mousse which will be accompanying me to family gatherings and the gorgeously fat Chocolate Father Christmas! (My first ever one!)

Christmas is a time when we remember that Jesus came into the world as the light to defeat the dark things. Having an allergy can feel like a very dark thing. In the past I have lived in a world of fear unable to properly take part in events because I’ve spent the whole time terrified of the feeling of my throat swelling shut. But I know that I don’t need to live this life of fear because God defeated fear when he sent his son into the world to die and rise again, he wants me to live a joyful life!

I’m heading off now to eat my hundredth dairy free mice pie and watch ‘Love Actually’:D

Speak soon,

The Allergy Student xxx