Orange Wig Day is the biggest and brightest day in the annual calendar of the Anaphylaxis Campaign as people from across the UK wear distinctive orange wigs at home, work and school to raise awareness about severe allergies and anaphylaxis. Getting involved was truly a family affair this year for nurse Lucy and her children, 10-year-old Caleb and 6-year-old Emily.
The Moreton family have a personal reason to be passionate about allergy awareness; as Lucy explains “My daughter Emily was diagnosed with a dairy allergy at around three months old, and then during the process of weaning had multiple allergic reactions to wheat before we figured out what was causing them. Just this year we have established that Emily has thankfully outgrown her dairy and soya allergy, and can now tolerate baked egg, but as you can imagine, it has been quite a journey getting to this point, and we’re not there yet!”
Caleb was determined to take part in Orange Wig Day to support his sister and didn’t let having to take his SAT exams on the 18th May hold him back! He asked that his school could take part a week early so he didn’t miss out.
Lucy said “Caleb’s fundraising total was £285.00 in the end, he was quite overwhelmed with the support he received and is now feeling very proud of himself. He certainly got some attention at school, his friends thought it was great that he ‘actually did it!’
We’re really proud of him for not just raising the money, but for raising awareness of the seriousness of food allergies amongst his fellow students. It was also great to see so many staff and pupils wearing orange on Friday for their ‘allergy awareness day!’
Armed with knowledge gained from completing an Anaphylaxis Campaign ‘train the trainer’ AllergyWise course, Lucy, who is a registered nurse with a background in A&E and also a Healthcare Member of the Anaphylaxis Campaign, held a series of sessions at Caleb’s school called ‘how to be an allergy hero’ with the support of her sister. Around 420 children learned how to be allergy aware.
Lucy said: “It really was lovely to see how every single one of the children seemed to understand the significance of what we were telling them. We were asked lots of really good questions and heard lots of stories about their own experiences of food allergies, whether it was the child themselves, or someone they knew. I had some lovely feedback from the teachers following their session and many of them enjoyed sharing their new understanding with the children while we were there on Friday.”
If that wasn’t enough, Lucy also got her work colleagues involved with Orange Wig Day raising over £118 through a bake sale and holding anaphylaxis training too. It’s amazing to see how this passionate family are helping the Anaphylaxis Campaign to raise awareness about severe allergies in their community.