Here's a little vignette that, I hope, will inspire you with gratitude and perspective. And perhaps some generosity. Share the link and enjoy.
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My friend Cathie (who's also my three-year-old's godmother, by the way!) has recently turned to GoFundMe to beg funds for a peanut-sniffing service dog, ASAP, to protect her teen daughter Julia. I thought I'd put a plug in for them here.
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Julia is a lovely young woman, fond of crafts, children, chess, and literature. She is Cathie's oldest daughter, number two in a family of six.

Homeschooling has been the right choice for their family, in part because Julia and her sisters and brothers live with numerous different food allergies and sensitivities, some of them immediately life-threatening. Tree nuts, finfish, shellfish, wheat, eggs, dairy, rice, you name it -- somebody in their house is sensitive to it.
Julia's mother is, as you might imagine, an extremely versatile cook, and very good at streamlining and doing things such as making one kind of meal for one child and a different kind for another and a third kind for herself. I have had lunch at their house and personally observed three different pizza crusts being prepared at the same meal.
Very tasty pizza crusts, I might add. If anyone could rock multiple food sensitivities in a family of eight, it would be Cathie.
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But while one can adapt meals for kids and adults with "mere" sensitivities, peanuts (along with a few other things) have to be Protein Non Grata in Julia's household.
Everyone knows some people are allergic to peanuts, a few of them quite severely. Lots of kids have epi-pens stored with the school nurse. It seems that more and more parents every year have to carefully vet each good-faith proffered piece of candy or baked goods. We all know it's a growing problem.
But Julia has one of those instant, frightening, call-911 peanut allergies that make it hard even to enter public spaces. Here's Cathie, recounting the event that caused them to bite the bullet and start raising money for a service dog:
On Sunday we called 911 after arriving home from our Montana vacation. Julia had touched something with peanut residue at a restaurant on the way home. Within minutes, her fingers, knuckles and hands were swollen and covered with hives. She must have also brushed her lips because they were swelling up, too....
...We are quite certain that the contact happened when she touched something in the bathroom at the restaurant, possibly the bathroom door. Whatever it was, it was small enough to not be visible or smell-able because she is overly scrupulous about what she touches.
Cathie has told me that Julia cannot shop in grocery stores that have an open bin of bulk whole peanuts because the tiny dust particles sent into the air from the shells as they are scooped and poured trigger an allergic reaction in her airway. Some time ago, at a friend's house that had been thought "clean," Julia (walking barefoot on the carpet) stepped on a fraction of a piece of dry cereal, just a crumb, on the carpet. "Her entire foot swelled up," Cathie told me. "Within minutes."
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Julia is of high school age now. She is active in a scouting organization, in church, and in several academic clubs, and hopes to attend college, hold down a job, travel, serve the community, and all the other things that young people dream of doing. But at this point, she and her family have had to reckon with severe limitations on her activities in public spaces.
- Young people with allergies as severe as Julia's cannot safely hold many typical teenagers' jobs, such as food service or babysitting.
- Looking to the future, it's impractical to expect that prospective employers would be willing to enforce peanut-free policies.
- It's unrealistic to expect that the young people she might meet while away at college will carefully keep peanut products off the surfaces in a college residence hall.
- Maintaining a social and professional life will be challenging if she cannot safely enter most restaurants, coffee shops, or break rooms.
Of course, most restaurants, coffee shops, and breakrooms are not, in fact, contaminated invisibly with peanut residue. Most of them are, in fact, safe for Julia to enter and use... but she doesn't have a good way of finding out when they're not safe.
This is why a service animal seems to be an appealing choice for Julia. Service animals are allowed to workin most public places by statute. We are most familiar with dogs that have been specially trained to assist people who cannot see well enough to safely navigate public spaces and streets, and with dogs (and a few other animals) that perform routine tasks for people that have limited mobility.
In Julia's case, an "allergen alert" dog -- using capabilities similar to those exploited by police dogs that detect narcotics or explosives -- offers her the hope of quickly assessing her environment as she moves through it. Rather than avoiding EVERY place and event where she MIGHT come into contact with dangerous residue or dust, she hopes to be able to enter spaces freely, and rely on the service dog to alert on particular contaminated objects and surfaces.
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Julia's family recently returned from a trip to visit I Smell Trouble, LLC, a trainer of allergen alert dogs in Bozeman, Montana. Julia's pictured above with one of their dogs, which I guess they were taking out for a test drive.
(Some care had to be taken before the trip to identify a breed whose dander would not trigger sensitivities in any of the family members. Fortunately there are a few viable choices, so they do not find themselves in the especially unenviable position of being allergic to all the allergen alert animals.)
Here's Cathie:
The trainer has an opening for a dog for Julia if we can raise the money quickly and locate the breed we need - an Australian Labradoodle or Standard Poodle, due to their hypoallergenic properties. This is an almost two year process to get a puppy and have it fully trained and certified as a peanut detection dog...
We've been contemplating getting a peanut detection dog for Julia for almost a year now, but there is just no way we can afford it.
Today we decided we just have to ask for help.
Please check out our fundraising site.
I thought I'd lend my blog today to tell Julia's story, raise awareness of severe and immediately life-threatening environmental allergy, and -- perhaps -- encourage readers to pass the story on and help Julia raise the funds she needs to get on the list to acquire a service animal.
Julia would be about sixteen years old by the time her service animal is ready -- the perfect coming-out gift for a young woman who has a lot to offer the world, as soon as she can move freely in it.
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