Keeping food-safe and still having fun
Isaac Lane, 5, baking allergy-free cookies with his mum Jocelyn and sister Vivienne, 8. Isaac Lane just wants to be like any other kid, but his severe food and environmental allergies mean he has to be extremely careful about what food he eats or even touches.
Touching certain foods can make him break out in hives, while consuming dairy could send him into an anaphylactic shock that could be fatal.
The 5-year-old Hamilton boy has a teacher aide sit with him while he eats lunch at school to make sure he doesn’t come in contact with his danger foods that other kids are eating around him.
The teacher aide also helps him apply his barrier creams for his eczema and his extensive medical kit which includes an EpiPen is always close by.
Isaac’s food allergies include egg, dairy, sesame, kiwifruit and cashew and pistachio nuts.
He also has environmental allergies including dust mites, pollen, grass, cats and dogs which cause his face to come up in a red rash and his eyes to go puffy, red and itchy.
He attends Hukanui School in Chartwell which isn’t nut free, but his mother Jocelyn Lane said educating his friends and teachers about how they could keep him safe was far more important than banning certain foods.
It also made the situation less stressful for everyone.
“He wants to be like everyone else. He wants to eat with his friends and him having that confidence that his friends are going to keep him safe,” Lane said. “You don’t want to be the person who stops having the fun and the kid themself wants to have the fun as well.”
When he’s invited to a party she calls in advance to find out what colour the icing is so she can make him a cake the same colour to take along with his own party food.
She also adapts common recipes such as pancakes, macaroni cheese and pizza with egg and dairy substitutes so he could eat the same.
Isaac was an unsettled baby who developed severe rashes. Within two weeks of removing dairy from his diet, his skin had improved dramatically and he started settling better.
Lane said her one regret is that she listened to a specialist who told her getting him tested for allergies was a waste of time and didn’t get him tested earlier. — Nikki Preston