Uncategorized – in thriver words

Teal Pumpkins

If your child has a food allergy or sensitivity, be on the lookout for teal pumpkins this Halloween. The Teal Pumpkin Project began with one mother who wanted allergic children to have a great Halloween experience. https://www.foodallergy.org/our-initiatives/awareness-campaigns/teal-pumpkin-project It was later adopted by Food Allergy Research & Education (FARE) and made a national initiative.

Halloween illustration. Black square with round teal and blue circle containing flying bats, a bare tree, and jack-o-lanterns.

The idea is to provide non-food Halloween treats in teal pumpkins that are easily identified. This means an allergic child can go directly to treats that are safe for them. There’s no standing around feeling like the odd man out.

In general, filling a teal pumpkin with non-food treats is simplest for everyone because no labeling or label reading is required. One of the things that makes Halloween hard for the allergic is individually wrapped candy often has no ingredient list other than on the outside packaging. Once candy goes in a host’s bowl, there’s no label available for trick-or-treaters to check.

If your child is especially prone to feeling different, you may want to solicit help from friends and neighbors. Encourage them to participate in the teal pumpkin project. In addition, provide each one with a small bag filled with safe edible treats marked with your child’s initials. Text when you’re about to arrive and have them place the bag on the top of the teal pumpkin.

If you have a trick-or-treat route filled with teal pumpkin providers who choose non-food treats, you can also have a special pumpkin at home that has plenty of safe, edible treats for the end of the evening.

Your family might also choose to make some treats together like cake-ball spiders, lava cake dino-destroying mountains, popcorn balls, or caramel apples. The specifics will have to work within your child’s particular restrictions, but the memory-building family time can make everyone feel included.

Adapt your child’s favorites into scary appearance and ramp up the atmosphere by using Halloween themed serve ware. Don’t worry about perfection or trying to do too much. Going overboard can make a kid feel just as different as leaving them out.

The idea is just to let the child see that they are seen, considered, accepted, accommodated, and welcome as part of the family, crew, troupe, or friend group. I know that probably sounds like a duh statement, but othering from adults is an everyday occurrence. And children follow their example.

In spite of its national presence, your community, neighborhood may not yet participate in the Teal Pumpkin Project. In my city of 207,000, there’s currently one household on listed on the Teal Pumpkin Project map. Households may be rare in your area as well.

You can change that by becoming a Community Captain https://www.foodallergy.org/take-action/teal-pumpkin-project/teal-pumpkin-project-community-captain You’ll find many resources for getting started on the website.

Even if you don’t have time to be a Community Captain, you can add yourself to Teal Pumpkin Project map, print out one of the free participant signs or flyers, or mix a few non-food treats into your regular candy bucket.

My Halloween focus again this year is offering Breakfast Bags of nutritious food in addition to candy for anyone who wants one. Last year, I ran out in 30 minutes and had to throw together a few more from items in my pantry.

This state has the highest percentage of food insecure children in the nation. Allergies and sensitivities are a big deal. They can be life-threatening. Starvation is life-threatening as well.

No matter how you may view adults in your community, hunger and allergies are never a child’s fault. Providing for them is the least we can do. Please consider a teal pumpkin.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Communication

If you understand the importance of communication and do your best to communicate well, it can be frustrating when co-workers don’t. But the truth is, you can only control your side of the equation.

In this world of abbreviations and emojis, I’ve noticed it’s much easier to say nothing than ever before. This may work fine in some situations. In fact, it can make you appear to be more of a team player than you actually are.

But saying nothing can also be deadly. If you are a pilot, communication with the tower or other aircraft can determine whether or not you make a safe landing. If you are a doctor, clear communication of instructions to your staff and patients can make the difference between complications or smooth recovery. And closing the communication loop builds trust with clients, patients, and colleagues.

Seems like internal communication would be an area of emphasis in policy and training in all industries. And yet, communication is often the most broken system in an organization.

Two men seated. One is masked and gesturing. Blonde female with ponytail and mask leaning toward second man with gloved hands out palms up.

In healthcare systems, this is unimaginable. And yet it is problem repeated day in and day out.

Developing good communication systems is not as complicated as setting criteria for transplant eligibility, developing infection control procedures, or reducing the number of opioid prescriptions. But it can make a huge difference in morbidity and mortality.

So why do health systems focus on external communication and image branding instead of the kind of internal communication that makes patients feel seen and cared for? This would build the brand in a more significant way and get better health outcomes. Better health outcomes will further a positive view of the brand.

This is a rhetorical question. I don’t know why it’s not a priority. I’ve served in multiple advisory positions in a hospital as well as a vendor that worked with hospital marketing departments. Overall communication procedures are something that just never get much traction and, in one instance, direct push back.

In that instance, I feel like there was a desire to avoid transparency. But that’s not always the case. Often, it’s just a lack of thinking the process all the way through and spending the time to write policies.

And there’s currently a weird belief that presenting facts is somehow being confrontational. A lot of people avoid anything that resembles, or that they can imagine might be, confrontation.

Other than quality managers, it’s possible that health system leadership simply doesn’t recognize the importance of communication. Their training may include bedside manner, but most of the focus is scientific.

A pilot study of the effects of more complete communication on medical outcomes in a specific group of patients and/or patients and families could be instructive. If it shows improved medical outcomes in a group that receives more communication, it could help the issue gain legitimacy within the industry.

And all of us can let our health providers know that communication is important to us. Highlight it on every quality survey you receive. Mention it during every doctor visit. Put it in the comments in your patient portal. And express appreciation when the system gets it right.

We can’t control what the system does, but all of us together are a lot of voices. If we keep communicating, at some point, they will hear us.

Add Foods Slooooowly

If you upset your system be sure to add foods slooooowly once you’re feeling better. The mistake I made eating smoked brisket in August, is still affecting me. No, it’s not my imagination. No, it’s not fun. It affects my everyday life, my work life, and my social life.

That’s what ingesting gluten, or triggering an IBS, or MCAS flare can do. It can disrupt everything! The results can make familiar situations so uncomfortable you have to change your routine. And, in the case of me yesterday, they can mean you have to lie down after a meal because if you don’t you feel dizzy or too tired to move.

For the next couple of days, I will eat primarily apples, eggs, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and limited amounts of chicken or turkey. These are things my system tolerates well even during a flare. As time goes on, I’ll add squash and English peas.

The second mistake I made is, once I felt normal for a day, I rushed back to my regular diet and even tempted fate with restaurant food and a few Cheetos. The restaurant is local and uses fresh food, but still may have stretched the limits. Cheetos. I knew better.

Don’t worry, I won’t do that again any time soon. But I haven’t had a flare that lasted this long or put me in this much pain in a decade so I no longer remembered the effects viscerally.

If you try an elimination diet, make note of foods that you tolerate well when you begin adding foods back. This can become your go-to diet for recovering from an accidental ingestion of foods that irritate your system.

Using well-tolerated foods as your base, slooooowly add back foods that typically give you the least issues. For instance, I don’t usually have problems with beef until my system has already been triggered to overreact. In that circumstance, beef may cause a significant detrimental reaction.

It’s best if I don’t rush to eat beef once I feel better. If I do, I risk starting the healing process over to some degree. Not only will that bring physical discomfort, it will bring multiple levels of frustration.

Would I love to eat some chocolate today? Yes, it sounds yummy. But chocolate is an irritant I cannot tolerate in large quantities or often. Instead, I’ve gone back to the dietary basics I started with a month ago.

This is a great opportunity for me to practice patience. I will today and tomorrow, but as I begin to feel better, the temptation to eat something that tastes better will reappear. That’s when my resolve will be tested.

To entice myself to continue to eat safe foods, I can add small bites of relatively safe foods to jazz things up as I continue with the basics. Adding a little honey to my toast, a bit of goat cheese to my eggs, a bowl of rice with a dab of butter and raspberry jam to my breakfast, can introduce enough taste variety to reduce the temptation to eat chocolate or Cheetos.

There’s no set time frame for getting back to a more varied menu after a flare but learning from my mistake and not going back to a full diet immediately after you feel better for a day can prevent a lot of pain. After a flare, it’s better to add back slooooowly.

Good Enough

When is good enough good enough? We often hear the cliche, don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. There’s wisdom in that. None of us will ever reach perfection. Allowing pursuit of perfection to stop us from progress is counterproductive.

But is good enough always sufficient?

Obviously, that’s going to depend on your definition of good enough. In some areas, good enough will depend on your overall goals. But when it comes to adhering to a specific diet plan, your health may dictate whether good enough is sufficient or perfect should be the goal.

I know it may seem a bit lofty to explore dietary adherence when we’re spending a lot of time just trying to make sure the eggs, lettuce, sprouts, avocadoes, and blueberries won’t kill us. But let’s assume for this moment that we have resources for locally grown food that is safe.

If you have celiac disease, research indicates strict adherence is necessary to eliminate damage. In that instance, it is not sufficient to avoid cake and donuts most of the time. That isn’t good enough for optimum health.

If you have an anaphylactic response to peanuts or shrimp or any other food (chemical or medication), strict avoidance is necessary to make sure you can continue to breathe. It may not even be good enough to avoid eating shrimp (or whatever you’re allergic to). You may have to avoid areas in which it’s cooked or surfaces it has touched.

When you are following a heart-healthy diet, you may be able to have the occasional problematic food. Discuss with your doctor what level of adherence is good enough for your situation.

For those with MCAS, it can be a bit of a mixed bag. You may be able to tolerate small amounts of certain histamine liberators while others may send you into an intolerable flare. Good enough may be good enough for everything but specific trigger foods, medicines, or personal care products.

Diabetes can also be tricky. You need carbohydrates in the form of fruits and vegetables, but too many carbs can elevate your blood sugar level. And what about the occasional piece of cake at a party? You may be able to tolerate a small piece of cake without a significant spike in blood sugar.

Whether or not you use insulin or a prediabetes management medication will also have an effect. With diabetes, it is important to have a plan and to adhere to it. But your doctor and nutritionist can help you determine if and when good enough is enough to manage your disease. This may change over time.

All of us want to breeze through a day eating when we’re hungry, drinking when we’re thirsty and choosing whatever tastes good in the moment. For some of us, that’s not a luxury that’s available if we want to keep breathing, avoid running to the bathroom, eliminate abdominal pain or cramps, and avoid rashes, kidney disease, heart disease, muscle weakness, peripheral neuropathy, or diabetic coma. For some of us, good enough may not be enough.

It would be great if this weren’t true. But fighting reality can mean prolonging symptoms, development of additional symptoms or complications, shortened life expectancy, and even sudden death from an allergy.

The best tool you have is to understand the parameters in which you can operate and have optimal health. That is the only way to know if good enough is healthy enough.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6647104/