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FAACT Welcomes New Member to the Leadership Team

January 14, 2020  |  Adolescents, Adults, Advocacy, Allergies, Allergy, Allergy-Awareness, Anaphylaxis, Awareness, Behavior, Behavioral-Health, Blog, Camp, Camp-TAG, CampTAG, Caregivers, Children, Education, Emotions, Epinephrine, FAACT, Family, Food-Allergies, Food-Allergy, Food-allergy-blog, Grandparent, Healthcare, Know-The-FAACTs, Nonprofit, Nurses, Parent, Patient, Preparedness, Programs, Safety-Tips, School, School-Nurse, School-Resources, Self-Care, Summer-Camp, Support, Support-Group, Teens, Welcome, Workplace
Linda Menighan

Linda Menighan
Vice President of Programs

In 2002, my 10-month-old daughter, Bailey, experienced the first of what turned out to be multiple, life-threatening allergic reactions to food. We had invited some friends over to watch a movie. Bailey was given Reese's Pieces candy while watching the movie. Later that night, she broke out into a rash and hives all over her body.
 
As a baby, Bailey often had issues with eczema, but this was different. She had hives and a red rash covering her whole body. Because I did not know she was experiencing an allergic reaction, I treated it as I would the eczema – and it went away that night.

A month later, we were visiting family and Bailey at a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I was not there to see her reaction, but was told that she threw up all over the place and was not feeling well. Again, the symptoms went away before bedtime. Nothing made sense to me, so I consulted our local board-certified allergist for testing.
 
Imagine a 10-month-old baby having blood drawn to diagnose food allergies. It was one of the hardest things I had to do – hold her down so the nurse could stick a needle in my baby and draw about 10 vials of blood. She was diagnosed with allergies to peanut, tree nuts, and egg.

The day I found out that Bailey had food allergies, I began reading everything I could about living with food allergies and available resources. There was not much out there in 2002. I kept journals of everything she ate and got creative to get her to eat certain foods. Bailey did not eat anything unless I made it for her. Welcome to the world of being a food allergy mom.

Read Linda's personal connection here....