sweet poem about the emotional journey

This poem is pretty bang-on. My wife received it at an allergy support group meeting a while back, I just stumbled upon it myself tonight. Of course I googled it, and support groups for parents of kids with all types of disabilities everywhere in the english-speaking world use it. No surprise there.
Ironic thing is that I have visited family in Holland many times, and we visited Italy when only 3mos pregnant with our child.

Welcome to Holland - Emily Perl Kingsley
I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this ...

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip … to Italy. You can buy a bunch of guidebooks and make your wonderful plans. The Colosseum the Michelangelo David, the gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. Its all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes and says "Welcome to Holland.”

“Holland?!?” you say. “What do you mean, Holland? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay. The important thing is they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guidebooks. And you must learn a new language and you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around, and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills. Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And the rest of your life, you will say "Yes that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I planned".

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever go away, because the loss of that dream is a very significant loss.

But if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things about Holland.

birthday parties

preparing safe food for them is going to be a lot of work...
Anyway, he kept playing in the living room while the other 3yos smooshed their food everywhere at/around the table, then he popped over in time for dessert (special chocolate cupcake with Dairy Free ice cream). All in all worked out quite well!

blue menu all beef sausages update

Frederic just called re blue menu sausages inquiry from June.
Going through cases not closed yet; was apologetic about delay. The top 10 allergens were not in the product, line nor plant. Previous product made was "Frankfurters in a skin." He'll reissue a request to confirm legumes, lamb and gelatin.

Pacific Natural Foods Oat Beverage

Spoke with Beth at Pacific Natural Foods, 503-692-9666 x1317 a week or two ago, about their oat beverage (not available in Canada because of some rule that non-dairy beverages cannot be sold here if fortified). I don't have the details at hand, but she reassured me that it would be ok for our kid's suite of allergies.

Olympic Double Smoked Half Ham

Thank you for your recent inquiry about Olympic Double Smoked Half Ham.

We would like to inform you that here are no peanuts, milk, eggs, lamb or shell fish used in the manufacturing facility. Soy is used, however we cannot provide information on gelatin or legumes (may or may not be used) as we do not have this information at our disposal at this time.

If we can provide any further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us at 1-800-595-9072.

Thank you for choosing Mitchell's Gourmet Foods.

Telephone inquiry 23 May 08:
Olympic Fine Meats, Double-smoked ham, 2.655 kg
Maple Leaf Consumer Foods, Mississauga
COSTCO label: Packing May 1 08 Best Before Jul 3 08
UPC 257841 241312

Mitchell's Gourmet Foods website lists Olympic Fine Meats 306-382-2210
referred to Maple Leaf Consumer Inquiries 1800-595-9072
"UPC not in system (on label only, not on packaging)
No info on gelatin, lamb or legues, has to contact (...) and will c/b."

Encouraging!

Higher asthma rates in first-born kids linked to pregnancy conditions: study
May. 20, 2008
Provided by: The Canadian Press
Written by: Sheryl Ubelacker, Health Reporter, THE CANADIAN PRESS
http://www.medbroadcast.com/channel_health_news_details.asp?news_id=15403&channel_id=2014&relation_id=0

TORONTO - First-born children are known to have a higher risk for developing asthma and allergies than their younger siblings, and researchers suggest part of the reason may lie in the womb.

A study of 1,200 children on the U.K.'s Isle of Wight, followed from birth into childhood, found first-borns had higher levels of a specific immune-response substance in their umbilical cord blood than did second-born children. The substance is an antibody called IgE.

"This was important because there are two different schools of thought," lead author Dr. Wilfried Karmaus, an epidemiologist of the University of South Carolina, said in an interview. "One is considering the hygiene of the delivery of the birth is important for the immune (system) development and the other thought is that the prenatal exposure during pregnancy is important."

"And we could show that the immune markers (the IgE antibody) in first-born are already higher compared to second-born," he said. "I think it's not the hygiene, but the prenatal programming that plays a role."

(The hygiene hypothesis suggests that first-born children are not exposed to as many germs as their younger siblings are, so their immune systems overreact to common substances like grass, pollen and dust as if they were infectious agents.)

The study, presented at the American Thoracic Society's annual international conference in Toronto, also showed that the elevated risk for asthma and allergies persisted in eldest children throughout childhood.

At age four and 10, those with a higher amount of the antibody in their cord blood were more likely to have a positive skin-prick test for allergies and asthma compared with a younger sister or brother, Karmaus said Tuesday.

First-borns had more than double the risk of reacting to skin-prick allergy testing than did their younger siblings, the study found.

Karmaus said the amount of IgE is linked to a specific gene. In a first pregnancy, this gene appears to be more active, leading to a greater expression, or output, of the antibody.

"It's unclear what is the driving force behind it or what is the potential of risk for increased cord-serum IgE," said Karmaus, noting that women giving birth to their first child also have a higher blood level of the antibody than they do when having a second child.

"We assume that the contact between mother and child leads to a more immunological upset or arousal in the first pregnancy, so that something in the gene becomes expressed," he speculated, creating a higher risk of the child's immune system reacting to allergens.

Karmaus estimated that 20 to 30 per cent of all cases of asthma and allergy could be prevented if pregnancy conditions for first-born children could be altered somehow, although how that could be done is unknown.

"We don't know (how) yet, but the idea is to produce a condition during the first pregnancy which is comparable to a second pregnancy."

Commenting on the research, allergist Dr. Susan Waserman of McMaster University called the research interesting but by no means definitive.

The findings suggest that some process could be occurring in the uterus that affects first-borns and may represent an intervention point for preventing allergy, she said from Hamilton.

"But at this point it's just the subject of interest and future investigation."

blue menu original frankfurters

450g
upc 60383 78786
best before MA 26
lot 66809803 (66865803?)

prod info not available on website
4 may 08: reaction cough, gag reflex, body rash, anxiety. suspect related to this product, can't be sure.
7 may 08: called PC 1888-495-5111 frederick 1410. noted allergies, apologised and will call mfr to find out.

update:
2 Jun 08: follow-up call: Case #814935. still no confirmation; not usual concerns so have to check with their ingredient suppliers. Asked for Establishment number (in round logo with a crown and Canada above it): #354. "That will narrow search and hopefully get you an answer sooner."