News Wigan
The parents of a seven-year-old girl with multiple allergies have told how she was mocked by a shop assistant after they asked for the list of allergens in a bag of sweets to ensure she could eat them safely.
Matt and Sarah Bacon, from Wigan, said the remark was particularly insensitive as their daughter’s allergies were so bad she was just one mouthful away from catastrophe.
Savannah was diagnosed aged six months and her allergies include milk, wheat, eggs, nuts, mustard and sesame.
As Allergy Awareness Week draws to a close, her parents are making it a continuing mission to educate people about allergies.
Recalling the latest painful experience over the Easter weekend, Mrs Bacon said she was filling a bag of sweets from a pick-and-mix and asked the shop assistant if there were any allergens.
“She told me, ‘that means we’d have to check every box of the sweets that you’ve picked’,” Mrs Bacon said.
“And I said, ‘well, can you do that then, please’. And she kind of huffed inside and and then she passed them to me.”
Mrs Bacon left the shop but decided to return to buy a safe bag for her daughter.
“As we walked in the shop, the lady must have presumed that she’d [Savannah] had some of mine. And she said – ‘she didn’t turn green then’.
“And I just thought what a comment to to make about a health condition – you wouldn’t make a joke out of somebody being in a wheelchair or having a walking stick.
“Why make fun of a little girl?”
Mr Bacon added: “Savannah is very positive about her allergies and she is brilliant and very aware of what she a can’t eat but she does get upset some times.”
It is possible the allergies could ease with age with the hospital eventually building up her tolerance but Mr Bacon said: “At the moment she is so intolerant of wheat they just can’t risk it.”
The couple said they did not always experience such crass attitudes but as Mr Bacon explained: “We’re made to feel like an inconvenience.
“So if we ask if we can check the ingredients, you kind of get huffing and puffing with sighing and rolling of the eyes.”
Savannah’s allergies mean that often on a trip to a restaurant the only thing she could eat might be a plate of chips.
Their daughter even suffers if someone opens a bag of peanuts in her presence.
Recently when Mrs Bacon asked if a restaurant’s chips contained gluten she said it was greeted with a shrug from a waitress who said she did not know.
“She couldn’t even be bothered to go to the kitchen to ask the chef – if somebody came and asked for a key to the disabled toilet, would you say, oh, I don’t know where it is.
“We all had a meal and Savannah sat there not eating – as a family it’s heart wrenching and quite devastating.”
It means the family have to take food for Savannah everywhere they go.
“If you say allergy people think of getting a rash,” Mr Bacon said.
Mrs Bacon added: “For some children and adults its a matter of life and death.”
Last year, Mr Bacon did 14 runs in 14 days to raise awareness for the 14 main allergens, and the couple are currently planning their next 14 in 14 initiative.
“I wish we could keep her in a bubble and keep her safe, and I’m worried about probably the teenage years more, for now, we can kind of still control what she eats,” said Mrs Bacon.
14 most common allergens
The 14 most common allergens in the UK, listed by Allergy UK are as follows:
Celery, cereals containing gluten (such as wheat, barley and oats), crustaceans (such as prawns, crabs and lobsters), eggs, fish, lupin, milk, molluscs (such as mussels and oysters), mustard, peanuts, sesame, soybeans, sulphur dioxide and sulphites (if the sulphur dioxide and sulphites are at a concentration of more than ten parts per million) and tree nuts (such as almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, brazil nuts, cashews, pecans, pistachios and macadamia nuts).
