Check the ingredients: This reopening may contain a false sense of security.
Food allergies taught me not to take life-or-death risks. That’s why reopening scares me.
I stared at my plate of stir-fry, as aromatic as one could expect from a college dining hall. I was hungry. I wanted to eat my dinner, a simple enough request. I’d asked if there were mushrooms in the dish and had been assured there weren’t. But there they were, staring back at me.
I haven’t had an allergic reaction in a long time, I thought. I’ve outgrown so many of my allergies over the years, and maybe I’ve outgrown my mushroom allergy. So what if the protocols for a safe food challenge oppose eating allergens spontaneously and with other foods in a non-controlled environment? I was done being allergic to mushrooms. I’d spent 19 years being allergic to mushrooms. I. Just. Wanted. Dinner.
And that’s how I found myself in an emergency room in Waltham, Massachusetts, explaining to the doctors how my allergic reaction was not an accident and was totally and completely preventable.
I learned the hard way that, when it comes to health, you can’t just will your body into compliance. It’s impossible to just wish away an illness because you’re tired of avoiding it.
We’re getting restless. We’ve been stuck at home for months now, unable to do the ordinary things we took for granted. We’re ready for summer fun, we miss our friends and family, and we’re over it. For people who haven’t seen the devastating effects of COVID-19 firsthand, continuing to stay home can seem like an overreaction. What are we protecting against? It never really got as bad as they said it would.
I’ve lived my whole life fighting that kind of logic from my brain. The thing about living with a chronic disease like allergies is that I can be completely healthy most of the time, as long as I play my cards right. I live with an illness, but I’m not ill. I haven’t been to an emergency room for an allergic reaction since 2013; my husband hasn’t even seen me have a reaction that was severe enough to warrant more than a little bit of Benedryl and Zantac. This is partly because of a new treatment called Xolair and because I’m extremely careful. Even before Xolair, I’d had life-threatening reactions only a handful of times, a major feat considering I’m allergic to over 35 foods, some of which can cause a reaction even from airborne exposure.
I manage my allergies in much the same way the world is responding to coronavirus — by limiting exposure.
I only eat out in a handful of restaurants. I double check every food package label before eating, even if I’ve eaten the food hundreds of times. I bring my own food to weddings. I never eat anything at a potluck except the dish I brought, taking the first portion and never going back for seconds. I soap my hands regularly when I interact with people who are eating foods I’m allergic to.
If I mitigate my risk of exposure, nothing happens. That’s an indication that I’m doing everything right. It feels paradoxical — why am I so conscientiously avoiding mushrooms if I haven’t had an allergic reaction to mushrooms in years? Because if I slip up, I could die. The fact that I’m still alive and kicking is due only to how careful I am.
So too with reopening during the pandemic. It may seem like the response is overblown, that it’s totally okay to let our guard down and take liberties with the CDC guidelines. We might think, “How bad could it really be if we just have a couple of people over in our backyard for a Memorial Day BBQ?” Or, “I’m not sick, I can take a neighborhood stroll without a mask on.” It’s especially hard to rigorously follow the letter of the stay-at-home orders when the consequences aren’t visible. But once we see the consequences — the spikes in illness, the deaths, the essential workers who never signed up to be on the front lines pushed to their breaking points— it’ll be too late. If it feels like the sacrifices we’re making are all for nothing, then we’re doing it right.
Is it frustrating? Hell, yeah. But I learned from the mushroom incident that gasping for air in an ER is more frustrating. I’ve learned to adapt to a different sort of “normal.”
And now, our collective “normal” is different. Normal is wearing masks, physically distancing, socializing with friends virtually instead of in person. It’s taking extra precautions all the time, with the weight of death looming overhead. These precautions are hard and taxing economically, mentally, and spiritually. We’re tired of them. But the sooner we accept them instead of trying to will them away, the sooner we’ll adapt to them and find ways to cope.
And beyond that, we’ll remember that this pandemic is not forever. It isn’t chronic, and though the end date is unknown, it is coming. It will come in full faster if we’re careful now. If we experiment by bucking the guidelines or rushing a reopening, we’ll just find ourselves back in that Waltham ER.
In the meantime, we can seek the good and let that keep us going. I’ve learned to find the good in my allergies — I know a lot about food, I’m adept at finding recipe substitutions and concocting amazing nontraditional recipes, I’m detail-oriented, I problem-solve, I can come up with creative ways to socialize without food, and I adapt. Is this good as good as dining at an all-you-can-eat buffet without a care in the world? I have no idea and I don’t care, because the latter isn’t an option. This is my world, and all I can do is live in it.
That’s all any of us can do.