Dairy Allergy Family Travels…South of the Border!? Coordinating Medical Action Plan with Local MX Medical Care

Early in my son’s life we were in Florence, Italy when an ambulance arrived at the restaurant where we were dining.  My wife and I joked that perhaps we shouldn't eat there anymore.  I realize now it was in bad taste to the restaurateur, and horribly insensitive to a soul who might be scared for his very life.  Fast forward four years, the biggest concern I had in traveling to Mexico was ensuring my son would have access to high quality medical care…should such an emergency occur.

How do I get those questions answered?

In Houston, with the Texas Medical Center, superhighways, and EMS transport around every corner; we have an extended support network of sorts.

But, outside the USA?   What hospital do we go to?  How do we get there?

It turns out, hospital names and locations were the simplest to answer, but nothing more we could really do about it.  If we found ourselves in need of emergency care we knew that we would have cross language barriers & maybe preconceptions about food allergies versus intolerance at the absolutely worst time.  This is where we sought help.  Instead of planning for emergencies, we planned for safety.

Cabo is marketed to American tourists. Tourists who think it’s fun to sit in the middle of a desert under the summer sun.  With five star management, large scale Food & Beverage operations, pools and lifeguards, they even have a U.S. trained Medical Doctor on staff.  After booking the flight and room, my next order of business was to contact the good doctor and gain his support as our champion.

El doctor was instrumental in communicating our needs to upper management.  This voice of authority cannot be overemphasized.  Armed with the invaluable FARE web resources in English and Spanish we overcame both language barriers and skepticism.  Emergency care plan(Sp)  Emergency care plan(En).

From top to bottom, the entire staff was aware of our arrival and requirements by the time we arrived!

We also included our Allergist in our travel plans, who provided additional documents describing in Spanish the various medicines we were carrying (BRAND and GENERIC NAMES) and the purpose of each.  I read stories of emergency providers misinterpreting prescriptions and dosage requirements and wanted to avoid both.

So, we were prepared with letters of introduction signed, sealed, and delivered.

Blog entries to come:

·         Online Resources that we found helpful

·         Travel Preparation Checklist

·         Travel Plan Timeline

Dairy Allergy Family Travels…South of the Border!?

For any parent of a child with a severe Dairy Allergy I know what you are thinking.  Well I know what I was thinking, “How in the world will I manage to feed my child in a country where every course has dairy as a main ingredient”? We knew it wouldn’t be easy. And, we knew that it would take some planning and coordination.   

My husband and I have always loved to travel internationally. Traveling with our son as an infant with food allergies was a piece of cake (dairy free), even traveling with him as a toddler was manageable. But now that he is five it seemed that it would be near impossible. Just the thought of taking on a trip and managing his dairy allergy in a foreign country increased our anxiety level. It took us two years to finally work up the courage and take on the trip. Thank goodness for our support group! After a few conversations with our favorite food allergy mom blogger Nuteggactly, and after reaching out to our support system, we worked up the courage.   

Once we decided we were up for the task, we felt it made sense to travel to a destination we had visited in the past. Our criteria was simply that we stay at a resort where we felt they could accommodate our needs and provide us with a comfortable stay. The goal was to get our hands around handling food allergies outside the USA and the sooner the better.  

First stop: Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.  Here we come! Allà vamos 

Stay Tuned…………………………….

Dairy Allergy Family Travels…South of the Border!? Blog entries to come: Coordinating Medical Action Plan with Local MX Medical Care; Online Resources that we found helpful; Travel Preparation Checklist; Travel Plan Timeline

Food Allergy Awareness Week 2014

Class treat bags

Cynthia's idea to have our children's school celebrate Food Allergy Awareness Week proved to be a great one! We worked closely with school administration to organize a week that would raise awareness about food allergies.  The school held a teal free dress day during the week where any student wishing to participate could donate $1 to our selected organization.  We chose FARE to be the recipient of the funds raised.  Cynthia scheduled a registered nurse to speak to the middle school students and prepared food allergy posters and bookmarks to be placed around the school.  I arranged for food samples to be donated for staff awareness bags as I thought it would be helpful for them to sample food products geared for the food allergy population.  With generous samples provided by Sunbutter and Enjoy Life, I assembled staff awareness bags and class treat bags. The bags included the food samples, items sporting the teal awareness ribbon and recipes.  Our school nurse and librarian further assisted our efforts by filling the staff bags with food allergy handouts and reading food allergy books to the elementary students.  Starting the school year feeling overwhelmed and isolated, it was a great success to end the year on such a positive note. 

HFAN highlights

On May 1, 2014, the Houston Food Allergy Network held its first meeting.  What a great way to celebrate Food Allergy Awareness month. The founding members created the group's name and mission statement.  We discussed SafeFARE and presented the restaurant (Candelari's) with a flyer on how to get involved.  We identified upcoming events in our community: Food Allergy Awareness Week (May 11-17th, 2014) and the Houston FARE walk (September 6, 2014).  We are excited to begin this group and will plan to meet monthly. The next meetings are scheduled for July 14, 2014 and August 4, 2014.  All meetings will begin at 6:30p and will be held in the Fellowship Hall located at St. Theresa Catholic Church in Memorial Park.    

Welcome all!

As a mom to two young kids diagnosed with food allergies (tree nuts, peanuts, eggs and sesame), I have been searching for a support group to meet others facing the same daily challenges as my family.  After years of searching and praying, I have finally met another dedicated mom who understands and shares my passion for raising awareness about food allergies in the community. We soon recognized that it was time to start a support group in the Houston area. We have worked together over the past few months preparing this group and aligning ourselves with a great support team.  It is our hope that this group can touch the lives of many.  As we have both felt in our food allergy journeys, a food allergy diagnosis can be very isolating and stressful.  Cynthia and I hope that this group can provide the emotional, spiritual and educational support needed to make life better and safer for all of those with food allergies in our community.  Please drop in anytime for a meeting.