Acknowledging, Accepting and Empathy (my response the Joel Stein and Food Allergies)

I originally wrote this on WEGO Health:

The three words in the title of my post are sometimes the hardest words for us as humans to act out. When it comes to the way we treat other people with health conditions (or let's face it, just in general) these are three words that we need to remember and put into practice in our daily lives.

The title of my post almost was "A part of me still wants to run Joel Stein over with my car". But that probably wouldn't be very accepting of him as a human being now would it? And I wouldn't be acknowledging that he is a person with feelings too. But in January 2009 he didn't acknowledge the feelings of anyone in the food allergy community. He wrote a funny little Op Ed piece titled Nut Allergies: A Yuppie Invention. And he opened it with "Your kid doesn't have an allergy to nuts. Your kid has a parent who needs to feel special". As if it isn't hard enough to get people to take our children's food allergies seriously, Mr. Stein ripped us apart in the L.A. Times, and numerous others jumped on the bandwagon after him. Good times.

I was angry. I know spewed some food allergy rage on twitter, in comments on various articles touting what a genius Mr. Stein was for bringing this issue to the attention of the non food allergy masses, and maybe in a blog post or two. I did manage to keep it civil here on WEGO Health. But never once did I wish that Joel Stein had a child with food allergies. Never once did I wish he had to go through what we went through. I would never wish that on another parent nor would I EVER wish that on an innocent child.

But it seems that food allergies struck the Stein household and Joel's 15 month old son has nut allergies. He was recently diagnosed after a severe reaction and Joel has now been thrown into the role of allergy parent himself. He wrote another little article about it in the August 9th issue of Time Magazine. The article uses humor, and doesn't apologize for his original remarks, but does point to the irony of it all. What's the saying? "Before criticizing someone, walk a mile in their shoes" (or something like that). This is a good saying to remember. For all of us.

How many times have we judged someone due to a health issue that we have no experience with?

"How much pain could he possibly be in"?

"I don't understand why she can't work. How bad can it be"?

"They act like their illness is the end of the world. Get over it already".

"A little wheat/egg/peanut never hurt anybody. What's the big deal"?

Even if we don't or can't understand what a person is going through, it is better to acknowledge that they are ill. Just acknowledging the illness let's the person know that you understand that they are going through SOMETHING.

And accept that life is going to be different now for that person. He may not be able to do the same things that he did before. And in turn, it may affect you. If it affects you and you're bothered by it, imagine how he feels?

And even if you can't do anything about it, try having a little empathy.

Acknowledging, Accepting, and Empathy may not cure someones health condition, but it may certainly go a long way in making them feel better psychologically and at least you aren't kicking someone when their down (Joel Stein). And just remember, illness won't pass you up just because you think you're too smart or witty for it. You can't run or hide. One day you may be walking in those shoes. And you'll hope someone will do the same for you.