Last week was the Emmys, and while I dont usually watch that kind of stuff, I was kind of excited to hear that Jimmy Kimmel would be hosting it. I like Jimmy Kimmel, and I think he’s a funny guy. However, he made a joke at the Emmys that I definitely did not find funny.

During the Emmys, Jimmy Kimmel decided to pass out peanut butter and jelly sandwhiches to everyone in the audience. That’s THOUSANDS of potentially deadly sandwiches.

Whilst passing them out, Kimmel asked the audience which among them had gluten allergies. After those that did raised their hands, Kimmel said that he just wanted people to know which of their favorite celebrities “were the most annoying.” Kimmel has a history of insensitivity towards gluten allergies, calling people with celiac disease “annoying” during his “What is gluten” video.

Kimmel then goes on to say that if anyone had peanut allergies “then I guess this is goodbye, because we could only afford one EpiPen.” While I appreciate a jab at Mylan as much as anyone, this kind of took it too far.

Kimmel’s joke was widely renowned as the highlight of the Emmys, but in my humble opinion, any joke about something as serious as that isn’t funny. What people need to realize is that this stuff kills people. And it isn’t like joking about allergies is a new thing.

Ricky Gervais, who I absolutely love, made a joke about it on the Tonight Show a couple months ago. He was talking with Jimmy Fallon about one of his plane trips, and how there was an announcement about how there would be no nuts served due to a severe allergy on board.

Gervais told Fallon that even though he knew that “they would blow up like a giant frog,” “he never wanted to eat nuts more” because he felt like the person was “infringing on [his] rights.”

http://globalnews.ca/news/2773787/ricky-gervais-goes-on-rant-about-nut-allergies-enrages-parents/

Perhaps none of it is as vile as the words of Louis CK, another comedian. In one of his stand-up routines, he says that if touching a peanut can kill you, “maybe you deserve to die.”

It made me wonder, do people like Kimmel and Gervais, who people watch and look up to, have a responsibility not to joke about those kinds of things? Does it hurt more when a celebrity with a huge audience makes a joke out of allergies?  I think it does.  This is because if they joke about allergies, then everyone else will think it’s okay. Last week when a kid at my lunch table waved a peanut butter sandwich in my face like it was the funniest thing in the world, he didn’t think what he was doing was at all wrong.

The media plays an important role in public opinion. If the media treats allergies as a joke, everyone will think allergies are a joke. Actually, that’s kind of why I started this blog in the first place. I wanted to emphasize the seriousness of food allergies of all kinds. After all it isn’t “just a joke” if someone could be hurt.

Until next time.

Gary

Gosh, it’s been forever since my last post! Sorry for the wait everyone, but with six tests, two presentations, and a foreign language skit, this week was a nightmare. I’m getting super excited for Halloween. I ordered my costume a while ago, and it arrived in the mail recently.

I’m gonna be Harry Potter. I love the books, people say I look just like him, AND my birthday is the same day as Harry Potter’s birthday. Plus, I can say I’m going as Gary Potter. I dress up as him pretty much every other year just because of how perfect it is.

Speaking of Halloween, my last post was about the Teal Pumpkin project, and to continue with the theme, I’m going to talk about a fun local event that goes on in Michigan for kids with allergies.

It’s called Trick or Treasure, and it’s held in a little town called Clawson, Michigan. During Trick or treasure, children with allergies can walk around the town of Clawson in their costumes. If a storefront has a Trick or Treasure sign on it, trick or treaters can walk inside and find someone offering a bowl full of allergy safe treats and toys.

So far, my family and I have gone to the Trick or Treasure event for three years, and this year will be our fourth. Since I can’t always eat the treats on Halloween, this is kind of the next best thing. For people who are interested, the event is on October 29 from noon to three o’ clock this year.

This link leads to the Downtown Clawson website, where they give more details about the event.

http://downtownclawson.com/whatshappening/events/scaventure/

Of course this is a local event, so it’s only in downtown Clawson, Michigan. However, there are many local events that support children with allergies. So to make everyone’s Halloween a little bit sweeter, feel free to comment on this post about fun allergy-safe events in your area. I might include it in my next post!

Until next time!

Gary

Gosh, it seems like the school year is just flying by. I’m about 5 weeks in, and it’s already almost October! That means Halloween is coming up. The holiday is a little bit scary for people with allergies, but I personally love Halloween.   It seems like there are more and more things to accommodate people who have food allergies too, such as the Teal Pumpkin Project and the Switch Witch. In my next few posts, I will be talking about these things, as well as other peanut free things I do for Halloween, to give everyone an idea of how to make their holiday season safe.

The first movement that I would like to talk about is one that gained momentum relatively recently. The Teal Pumpkin Project. The Teal Pumpkin Project was originally an awareness campaign run by the Food Allergy Awareness Community of East Tennessee, but launched as a national campaign by FARE in 2014. Last year, there were Teal Pumpkin houses in all 50 states and a total of 14 different countries, and the movement is still gaining momentum.

Essentially, the Teal Pumpkin Project is a movement to have non-food items as an option to all Trick-or-Treating children with food allergies. By putting a teal pumpkin by your house, you are advertising to children that non-food items are given. Of course, that doesn’t mean you can’t also give away food items to children without allergies, but it is recommended that it is done safely and separately.

There are many non-food treats that are just perfect to give out to children with food allergies. The FARE website suggests glow sticks, stickers, necklaces, bracelets, bouncy balls, Halloween erasers, etc. Of course you don’t even have to go to the store to get that stuff. Simply by going to FARE’s website, you can order a food free “Halloween Essentials” kit, filled with fun toys to pass out during Halloween.

Another great source for inexpensive non-food treats is The Oriental Trading Company.

It isn’t that hard to do that little bit extra for kids with food allergies. This Halloween, make sure to think of the Teal Pumpkin Project when you are ordering your treats. Then go online and register your home as a Teal Pumpkin house.  You could make a little kid’s day!  I would have been so excited when I was little if the Teal Pumpkin Project had been around.

Here are a few links to help you get started.

This is the link to the Oriental Trading company, which is a great place to get all sorts of fun Halloween toys.

http://www.orientaltrading.com/

For those of you who don’t want to paint a pumpkin teal, here are a bunch of printable flyers, posters, and more advertising your house’s teal pumpkin status.

http://www.foodallergy.org/teal-pumpkin-project/download#.V97yNFsrLrc

Here is the website where you can register as an official Teal Pumpkin house.

http://www.foodallergy.org/teal-pumpkin-project/fever-map#.V9711FsrLrc

Finally, this is the website where you can purchase a Halloween Essentials package, full of safe toys.

http://store.foodallergy.org/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=TP6EK

Until next time!

Gary

There are a lot of organizations out there that make the lives of those with allergies easier. FARE is one of them. Enjoy Life Foods is another. However, what I believe to be the most important organization, not only for those with an allergy, but for those with any serious medical condition, is MedicAlert.

MedicAlert basically serves as a giant medical archive. It is a non-profit organization founded in 1954 that stores the medical information of all of its members for emergency purposes. Imagine if I were to have an allergic reaction and go into anaphylactic shock somewhere with my friends. They might not know what’s going on, so they would call 911. However, in order for health care professionals to determine what’s wrong with me, they would call MedicAlert. There are operators that answer emergency calls 24 hours a day, seven days a week..

I always wear a MedicAlert bracelet. It states that I have a food allergy and that I carry EpiPens. It also has my MedicAlert ID number.  If a doctor or paramedic were to call MedicAlert and give them the ID on my bracelet, they would have access to all of my medical records. MedicAlert kind of speaks for me when I can’t.

This is super handy, because if doctors know that I have a life threatening food allergy, they know that they should use an EpiPen, for instance. MedicAlert has helped to greatly reduce treatment errors for patients when they become unresponsive and can’t speak for themselves.

Also, since I have my bracelet, that means that no matter where I go, I know that if I were to have an allergic reaction, everyone would know what’s wrong.

MedicAlert isn’t just for someone with allergies though. It is for people with any severe medical condition. This includes asthma, autism, diabetes, people with a high risk for stroke, seizures, and basically anything else.

The bracelets are great too. They have all different kinds, including ones for children and adults. I decided to take a picture of mine as I was typing my blog.

I like wearing the classic MedicAlert bracelet. It’s super thin and lightweight. Sometimes I even forget I have it on. It’s also durable too. I’ve been wearing the same bracelet for years. My mom just keeps adding links to the chain to make it bigger. I also find that it’s hard to take off, which is excellent. I don’t have to worry about it falling off and losing it. I tried to take it off to show a picture of just the bracelet, but after a couple minutes I just gave up.

All in all, I’m pretty grateful for MedicAlert. They are kind of like the voice for those who are incapacitated and can’t tell doctors whats wrong with them. And trust me, that takes away a lot of pressure for me. Of course, MedicAlert bracelets aren’t the only bracelets you can use to put your MedicAlert information on. I just got my fist new ID since elementary school. I know, I know creature of habit.  What can I say?  I like what I like, BUT I love my new Road ID–and I was even able to have my Medic Alert number engraved on it.  I will tell you all about it tomorrow.

Until next time!

Gary

Yesterday was not a good day.  Yesterday I felt sad and alone.  I also felt scared and threatened–and I just don’t think other people understand food allergies sometimes.  I was going to come home and write about it, but I was upset, so I thought I would take a step back and sleep on it.

Yesterday the main attraction on the menu at school seemed to be a peanut butter sandwich, and literally just about everyone who bought lunch had one, which is a little over half the school I would say.  I go to a small IB school.  We are housed inside the Freshman Center of a large local district.  Yesterday was their first day of school, so now we share their food service. I spent lunch basically surrounded by peanut butter. That wasn’t awful; I’ve been in similar situations before and just avoid the stuff. But this time was different.

One kid, who has picked on me in the past, taunted me with his peanut butter sandwich by holding it close to my face, waving it around, and laughing, etc.

He looked at me and said “I could literally throw this at you and you would die”, and then he laughed. It made me feel scared and uncomfortable.

Luckily, I had some good friends who stuck up for me that day. They told him to stop and, although he kept on going, it helped me realize that the friends who I do have are good ones. They told me I should probably leave the cafeteria early so I did. The whole thing just made me upset.  If someone said “I could literally stab you with my scissors and you would die” they would probably be suspended–or worse.  I wish people would understand that, for people with food allergies, peanut butter is just as dangerous and threatening as those scissors would be.

Every time I think that the other kids at school understand, something like this happens. I know many of them do understand though, and it makes me appreciate the efforts my friends go to in order to ensure my safety.

I just came home feeling down.  Thankfully today was a better day.

Until next time,
Gary