The lunch room
Over the summer, Brandon passed the 2 peanut threshold in his OIT journey, meaning he could safely ingest 2 full peanuts. That's a huge win for him in this journey becuase of a thing phrase that food allergy families are all to familiar with.
Cross contamination.
If you've never dealt with food allergies, you probably don't know what "CC" is, and that's to be expected. What it means, is that someone with food allergies has to be cognizent of the potential for their allergen to have come in contact with something - or someone - they are close to, and therefore, they have to be aware of a possible reaction. For a kid who has food allergies, the lunch table can be a frightening place, becuase that risk of cross contamination is e.v.e.r.y.w.h.e.r.e.
Brandon goes to public school and has since kindergarten, so he's always been in a large lunch room, full of tables and kids and Lord only knows what kinds of potentially dangerous foods. 😟 It's a really hard thing to handle as young as kindergarten, and it forces these kids to:
Cross contamination.
If you've never dealt with food allergies, you probably don't know what "CC" is, and that's to be expected. What it means, is that someone with food allergies has to be cognizent of the potential for their allergen to have come in contact with something - or someone - they are close to, and therefore, they have to be aware of a possible reaction. For a kid who has food allergies, the lunch table can be a frightening place, becuase that risk of cross contamination is e.v.e.r.y.w.h.e.r.e.
Brandon goes to public school and has since kindergarten, so he's always been in a large lunch room, full of tables and kids and Lord only knows what kinds of potentially dangerous foods. 😟 It's a really hard thing to handle as young as kindergarten, and it forces these kids to:
- grow up really fast and be extra responsible, and
- potentially single themselves out and feel isolated.
Brandon has handled his food allergy beautifully all throughout his school career, and quite honestly, it has taught him to be pretty darn assertive for himself, not only with other kids, but also with other adults who don't understand his allergy or respect the rules he needs to follow. All through elementary school, he sat at the end of his class's assigned lunch table, and he took it upon himself to tell his friends who sat around him that if they wanted to sit around him, they needed to not have PB&J, nutella (most kids don't understand that this one has nuts in it!!), peanut butter granola bars, etc. From what I can gather, I don't think he's ever been overly bossy about it to them (maybe I need to 'interview' his friends to see if that's really the case! 🤣), but most of his friends just 'knew' that if you sat by Brandon, you needed to be free from his allergens. And for the most part, most of his friends were good about it with him. Every once in awhile, I'd hear stories of kids giving him a hard time about it - well-natured, age-appropriate, non-food-allergy-educated teasing - but all in all, he managed it well.
Even as Brandon started junior high in the fall of 2018, he still chose to separate himself out from the majority of kids. There was a 'peanut free' table designated at the edge of the cafeteria . . . . still part of the normal lunch room layout, but on the end of the rows of tables. One of his best buddies was an absolute *gem* 💎of a friend, and sat with him every day, even though he didn't ever need to. This friend could have easily sat with the other kids at lunch, but he stuck by Brandon's side, sat with him, and his mom (one of my very, very dear friends), even re-engineered his lunches so they were "Brandon safe." Talk about true friendship!!
So passing the 'cross contamination' threshold for the start of 7th grade was a HUGE milestone for Brandon, one he was extremely excited about. And with good reason! So from Day 1 of 7th grade, Brandon ventured into the 'great wide open' 🤣 of the middle school lunch room, toting his lunch box, still without any peanut products of his own in there, but confident enough to sit in the general population with more of his friends. 😀 His steadfast friend from 6th grade lunches whom I mentioned above joined him as well this year at the 'regular table.' Brandon has band right before lunch, so he's able to sit with his friends from band, intermingle with everyone, and for once, finally just be a normal kid in the lunchroom. 💙
Exhale.
He's even expressed it to me a few times this school year - "Mom, I love sitting with my friends at lunch now!"
Wipe away happy tear from Mom's face! 😭
He's even expressed it to me a few times this school year - "Mom, I love sitting with my friends at lunch now!"
Wipe away happy tear from Mom's face! 😭
The fear isn't completely gone for him of risking cross contamination, and I can't say that I blame him. For 11 of his 13 years on this planet, he's been told to avoid, avoid, avoid. Now, every day its eat, eat, eat. Encounter. Immerse. Jump in. Don't look back. Wow - a complete 360 for a developing brain! He has come home some days and told me the smell of a PB&J, or the sight of a granola bar wrapper takes him aback and causes him to pause for more than just a second. But he said stops, tells himself he's safe, takes a quick deep breath, and continues on.
What more can you ask for for your kids than to be confident, carefree, and comfortable? Thanks to OIT, those are newfound feelings for Brandon this year in the lunch room. Priceless.
Suffice it to say, this mom is not allowed in the lunch room in middle school 🤣, so I don't have any pictures to go along with this post. But that's okay - the knowledge of him having more independence, inclusion, and confidence is enough of a picture in my own mind's eye to capture this benefit of our journey.
Until next time,
MKB 🐢💚🥜
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