Allergies are one of those things that I have dealt with most of my life. My parents had to stop me from jumping in leaf piles at a young age because I would stop breathing after. The thing is though that one of my allergies is really bad... like throat closing bad.
The thing I have realized lately is that too many people that spend time with me do not know about my deadly allergy which causes frustrations and that is all on me. If someone does not know I am allergic to something how can they help? They can't. So in this post I want to spell it all out. I want to make it clear I am not mad at you if this allergy has gotten in the way and you did not know about the allergy before hand. That in no way is your fault, it is on me.
I am very allergic to latex. I am also part of a group of people who don't need to touch latex, just be in the same room as it.
Latex is in SO many things!
My biggest issues are latex balloons and latex gloves.
This causes HUGE anxiety for me. Every birthday party invite makes my stomach turn because I don't know if there will be balloons there. Do I risk going? Do I ask the person if there will be balloons (sometimes if I don't know the host that is not easy). This fear comes with every birthday, baby shower, bridal shower, wedding ect invite.
Every time I walk into a store I quickly check for balloons. I walked into a Best Buy once and it had balloons all over the place and ended up in the ER. Just because a store was "safe" yesterday does not mean that it will be today (I was reminded of this at TJ Maxx recently)
There are many restaurants we can't eat in due to balloons.
The good thing is that I can smell latex in the air. My body works hard to keep me safe and there are times I can smell it before I can see it. It also lingers in the air so just because a balloon is removed from the room the latex will still be in the air making it still someplace I can not be. Some kids had balloons at church last Sunday and I had a hard time breathing even though I was not in the same room as them (someone stepped up and worked hard to keep me safe)
I carry an EpiPen with me to keep myself safe and always know where the closest ER is just in case but life is a lot easier when we don't have to go through all those steps (and EpiPens are one time use and expensive!)
Now I don't get upset when people don't know about my allergy and then it ends up messing with plans. That is my fault not theirs, however it makes me really sad when people choose balloons over me. I wish I could say this does happen but it has more then once. I can't go to the big fundraiser from the Boy Scout Troop my husband earned eagle scout in because despite my family and I asking for years they still insist on using balloons and it sucks. It sucks to have balloons chosen over you. It sucks when family members knowingly give your children toys with latex and then get mad at you for your latex allergy and the kids not playing with the toy (yes this has happened more then once). I don't want to be allergic to latex, its not something I asked for but something I need to work around. Something I try hard not to limit me but if I can not breathe I can not take care of my kids so not being around latex is a priority to me. Some people get all upset about it though because somehow by asking some people to not have latex around me I am being mean to them.
Latex is not my only allergy however it is my only airborn one. I am also allergic to: apples, most fruit (different to different severity), coconut, mold, leaves, multiple medications, milk (can have some), eggs (can have some), haired animals, and in the past have had issues with chocolate and tomatoes.
So I ask that if I am coming someplace if you could help keep me safe. Help to make sure there is not latex in the air I breathe. I truly appreciate it.
In other news:
-Lydia has started peeing again! Not sure why but she peed a little on Thursday and more on Friday. She is still not totally back to baseline but moving in the right direction. I am thankful for all of the prayers.
-Thursday we were blessed with tickets from RMH to go see the Brewers game in a club level box. It was amazing and such a great time to hang out with friends from rmh and let our kiddos enjoy something in a safe way for them (less germs and temp controlled) We are so grateful!
-I have spent a lot of the week working on insurance "fun." Changing insurance is always fun! I am so thankful that we have Katie Beckett as secondary otherwise from an insurance stand point Brent would have had to turn down this job, not because it doesn't have good insurance (trust me that is my first question) but because we just hit our out of pocket max with our other plan and completely starting over without the help of Katie Beckett would have bankrupt us. Because Katie Beckett helps with some of the out of pocket costs we were able to move to a job with better insurance (therefor less is passed to the state) and better pay (not a large amount but even a small amount is helpful) and it is a job Brent is really enjoying!
-Prayers for Jillian's wheelchair... the company does not know if they take our new insurance (we have one of the major health insurance companies so I am rather lost how they don't know) so that needs to be figured out before they will send the info to get pre-approval... this process is all going so slowly and is very frustrating. I am very thankful we have the loan chair for now however the chair we are ordering will work better for her and it frustrates me that this process is so slow for her.
-Today we celebrated Easter the four of us. It was a really nice calm day. Jilli was asking about why we celebrate Easter last night and it was fun sharing with her the why this year. We did the resurrection eggs this year. It was a good physical way to share the Easter story with Jilli.
-We also went to Target today and they had a Paw Patrol scavenger hunt in the store. It was great. It was accessible and they had both food and non food treats so Jilli was able to be included. Thank you Target for a fun event!
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| The amazing club level suite! |
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| Nate and Jilli at Target |
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| Caroline bought Jilli some paper eggs for her to color. I love when her friends think of her when they see things that make it safe for her to play too. Thank you Stacy for this fun Jilli safe Easter craft! |
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