drama allergy

 well, shit. today was pretty dramatic, my workday isn't over yet but i need to do a quick mind dump to free up some bandwidth for what remains...

yesterday:

i slept better on sunday night. i'm wondering if the alpha lipoic acid the doctor recommended is having an immediate effect. seems too good to be true, but if it's working i'll take it.

i rushed to the office early to return the keys i'd accidentally left with, and started the day on a zoom call with gd and mr smear's therapist which was generally optimistic.

the work day itself was tough, and i got home pretty frustrated.

mr smear did some good reading with me, and as a reward for doing it with a good attitude i started teaching him how to play minesweeper :)

after dinner i managed to make a little progress on a dev tool before settling down to watch an episode of monk with gd, after which i watched a few random youtube videos until realizing i needed to go to bed.

today:

i slept relatively well last night. lots of dreaming.

today started off pretty well, between the time mr smear left for school and the time gd and i left to meet up with him and his teacher i managed to make a bunch of appointments (from sunday's meeting with the doc).

the meeting started off awkwardly, as they wanted mr smear to introduce himself and tell us how he's doing. my gods, i wouldn't have been comfortable being put on the spot like that either, certainly not at his age, but after a brief silence we got things moving forward and lots of things were said.

in summary: mr smear's teacher seems really solid, and they appear to be off to a good start. i think we covered all the things that have been going on, where he's coming from and what he's been learning to deal with, and it was pretty optimistic. once he'd left the room, we talked about some of the heavier stuff.

of particular note was the councillor informing me that she received a call yesterday from the organization i spoke to, and she was offended that i'd reported that we didn't feel like they were doing anything. i made it very clear that our second complaint was about bullying, violence and harassment, and that until i informed the principal that we intend to go to the police the next time mr smear is injured we never saw any real response from the school. we talked about that in depth, and i think both the councillor and his new teacher understand where we stand and what's at stake.

i managed to keep my mouth shut when the councillor told us how important communication is, when we're the ones who've been begging them to communicate...

from there i went off to work. my lead and i came up with a plan, but my boss' request to prepare what i've been working on for a third party took up most of my day. and random conversations surround our procedures and practices too, i guess.

...

after lunch, though, was when all hell broke loose: mr smear's teacher dropped a bomb on the parents by demanding no dairy in the mishloah manot that the kids are supposed to bring tomorrow, and a lot of the parents were furious. not just because they'd already invested in and prepared the packages, but on principle, too.

my immediate reaction was flat panic because we do not want the parents or the other kids to resent us or mr smear due to his allergy. let me tell you, it's very difficult to navigate a situation like that tactfully when you want the teacher to know that what she's doing is appreciated (and correct, considering dairy is supposed to be banned on school grounds just like peanuts) but you also want the parents to not hate you.

i sent a message to the teacher to that effect, then i posted in the parents' group that i'd done so and that we had no intention of making everyone's lives difficult.

what followed was surprising: the mother of the bully from last week reached out to me, along with another parent, and both of them were stunned to learn that his allergy is a real danger and that he's been isolated from the other children because he's (justifiably) too scared to eat with or near them. i spoke to the mother on the phone, and she almost brought me to tears: she remembers being an isolated olah chadasha when she arrived, and she was deeply upset that mr smear has had to deal with the food thing on top of everything else. she's determined to use this story as a way to teach her son, and insisted on putting together mishloah manot specifically for mr smear.

she also convinced me to clear things up for the other parents. so i wrote a post in the group as follows:

hi everyone, i just spoke to some of you and realized that <mr smear>'s situation wasn't so clear until now.

<mr smear> has a severe allergy to dairy products. not a sensitivity - an allergy - at a life-threatening level. he has to carry an epipen with him at all times, and he is (rightly) afraid of other people's food that contains or may contain dairy products, so he usually avoids eating with the other kids in class or stays away from them because he is afraid that there might be an incident.

there are even kids in the class who take advantage of this fear to hurt him. just so you know.

we are very grateful to the parents who are considering the social implications of this, and those who contacted us - you touched us deeply. those of you who already understood and always cared - we thank you very much.

we're happy that <the teacher> is taking this matter seriously, but i promise that it is not our intention to make things difficult for you or your children. this is not an easy situation, for both us and you, and i hope we will continue to cooperate (and tolerate as much as possible) so that we can all be as comfortable as possible ❤️

the responses that followed were positive. and even if only some of the parents are with us and supportive, that's huge, and for the first time we don't feel so alone with this and we understand that the lack of consideration has mostly been from ignorance, not apathy. and now there's a bit of competitive overcompensation going on and it looks like a bunch of kids might be bringing vegan mishloah manot for mr smear tomorrow, so of all the directions today could have gone in i ended up having to give him a talk about showing gratitude for any gifts he receives even if they're from kids he doesn't like.

to underscore the first lesson, though, when i discussed it with mr smear after i got home he told me that he'd been really angry to learn that most of his class - after three and a half years with him - didn't understand what an allergy was. so today mr smear and their new teacher taught them. and maybe some of their parents learned, too.

...

that whole story took about two hours out of my work day, i went from terrified to overcome with gratitude to awkward and anxious and it took quite a while to come back to earth and be able to do some work. and then it was time to come home (late), i was supposed to help mr smear with his homework but between our talk and his stomache really hurting that didn't happen.

he'd better be doing okay by tomorrow morning. his best friend sent photos of himself hand-making oznei haman with pistachio cream for him. holy shit.