Fool Me Once

I’m finding it difficult to figure out how to blog about Zane’s food allergies and asthma. On one hand, part of the reason I started blogging was to write down the chaos and hypervigilance of our daily lives managing these illnesses. On the other hand, it’s not very enjoyable to describe the minutia of our days (i.e. I had to call the doc to get a different refill for the Atrovent because our insurance company says it should have lasted a month, but we were on breathing treatments 6 times a day so it only lasted 10 days.)

See, it’s neither enjoyable to write nor to read.

There are two things that I am clear that I don’t want this blog to become:

1. A recitation of symptoms that Zane is experiencing and how we’re managing them. Don’t get me wrong, I think there is much value in putting out there, “This is what’s happening to our family. Any ideas?” I have been to forums where this is very beneficial to folks both for emotional validation and also for concrete information and advice. I have decided not to do this kind of blog because, well, I’m a little obsessive anyway. I think chronicling all of his symptoms would put me over the edge from concerned parent to a doesn’t-have-any-life-of-her-own-so-she-focuses-solely-on-her-child kind of mama. The line is thin, and I’m doing my best not to cross it.
2. An informative guide with the latest asthma and allergy news. These blogs can be particularly helpful as they’ll give out the latest alerts, news items, and general information related to the conditions. Since I don’t want my blog to help anyone but me, I think that kind of blog is just not an option. Okay, that’s not the truth, but I don’t want to set myself up to scour the latest and greatest info out there and present it to the public.

In fact, I was at one of these information resource blogs last night and got a big old kick in the pants. McDonald’s french fries have both dairy and wheat in them. Besides thinking to myself What? I thought they were just plain old potatoes that were fried up to a crisp, golden brown majesty?, I also thought You must be (insert expletive here) kidding me? We were just there on Saturday. I looked at their allergen list. I did NOT mention that their fries contained dairy. Great.

I did more searching and come to find out; a LOT of people are quite upset about this. (See here, and here, and here). McDonald’s was dishonest and duplicitous in their prior food labeling when they stated that the fries were both dairy and wheat free. They only recently added this allergen information to their website. I can only presume they lied to hide their secret recipe of “11 herbs and spices” that make the fries a little piece of heaven. Oh wait, that was the wrong chain, but you get my idea.

I’m just really irritated because I never would have let Zane taste the sunshiney goodness of McDonald’s french fries if I had known they had dairy in them. Zane is allergic to dairy for goodness sake. I’m not interested in what your secret recipe is McDonald’s, I’m just trying to protect my child. And you, oh Satan of the golden arches, just made my job a little bit harder. In addition to having to be suspicious of all ingredient lists (Who says some other company won’t come clean in a few months?), I now have to explain to Big Z why he’s not allowed to have “fench fwies” anymore. To a kid who is already on a very limited diet, this is just plain unfair.

So although I won’t be writing either of the two kinds of blogs above (and I'm still not sure what kind of blog I will be writing), I’m sure glad they’re around.