Living life unfettered with food allergies

Nuts aren’t allowed in the Cole household. William, 4, is severely allergic to peanuts, and his mother, Carden, said they don’t take the chance on other nuts, either.

The Vestavia Hills family’s whole approach to food changed when William had a reaction to a peanut butter sandwich at 1 year old. 

“He immediately just started rubbing his eyes and rubbing his eyes. He wouldn’t stop and I knew something was just instantly wrong,” Carden said.

Carden said doctors at Children’s of Alabama were able to bring down her son’s hives with Benadryl, but at the time she knew almost nothing about food allergies. They took William to an allergist, but Carden said she learned so much more about living with food allergies from connecting with the No Nut Moms Group of Birmingham online.

“I’ve learned more from the moms in that group than I’ve learned from any doctor,” Carden said. “We moms do all the legwork for each other to keep our kids safe.”

Each family’s approach to handling food allergies is different. For the Cole family, which also includes husband John and 6-year-old daughter Harper, it means that every label has to be checked before they bring groceries into their home. Carden especially worries about cross contamination, trace amounts of nuts being found in nut-free products if they are made nearby.

William goes to a nut-free day care, and the Coles will have to have a special conversation with staff at Vestavia Hills Elementary East when he is older.

“There’s never really a down time for mom,” Carden said.

It also means passing up on little pleasures.

“You can avoid a nut. That’s easy. You can’t avoid a cross contamination. So for us that means we don’t go to bakeries, we don’t get the free cookie at Publix, we don’t go to ice cream stores ... There’s so much risk involved that any chance that nuts or peanut protein could have touched anything. I don’t risk it,” Carden said.

Carden said William already understands that he can’t pick up just any food, and asks her to check labels for him. But the Coles also want to make sure their son isn’t cut out of a normal childhood just because of peanuts.

When William goes to a birthday party, he brings his own cupcake. Carden volunteers to bring treats in to school so she can make sure there aren’t any nuts. After their friends finish trick or treating on Halloween — a difficult holiday for food-allergic children — the Coles invite everyone over for a party with games and safe food.

“There’s a lot of long nights of making homemade cookies or cupcakes ... I don’t ever want him to feel that he’s different, per se, or excluded because of these allergies,” Carden said.

It can be difficult, as Carden said the default way to spend time with friends is around a meal. Also, many people don’t understand how easily William’s nut allergy can be triggered. It’s important to the Coles, though, that William grows up knowing how to handle his allergy when other people can’t be there to help him.

“He has to live his life, and I can’t keep him in a bubble. He has to learn how to protect himself and be cautious and be aware,” Carden said.

Food Allergy Research and Education (FARE) is a national organization that promotes research, education and healthy management of food allergies. FARE’s nationwide Food Allergy Awareness Week will be May 8-14.

The No Nuts Moms Group of Birmingham will be celebrating the awareness week early by hosting an event May 6 at the North Shelby Library, 5521 Cahaba Valley Road.

The event begins at 4:30 p.m. and includes a viewing of a food allergy awareness video by Kyle Dine. The video includes music, puppets and games to teach children about allergies in an age-appropriate manner.