I have never been so sick in my whole life. We got stranded in Europe because of the Icelandic volcano and I made a terrible decision. I figured we’d make do with the food that our airline provided for us because we’ve been gluten-free for a long time, and surely we’d done some healing, right?

After two days of cheese or meat sandwiches, I woke up covered in rash. Every inch of me ached. My gut felt like it had been turned into hamburger. I was so fatigued, I just wanted to lay on my airport-issued cot and berate myself for being so stupid.

We could have gotten gluten-free food – but we’d likely have had to put up a huge fuss. After all, in the event of a disaster, I don’t think there are too many organizations who would be ready to deal with allergies. Certainly, the airport and our airline did as much as they could – but catering to special food needs was not on the table.

Then there was my mistake. Just because allergies are not life-threatening does not mean that it’s “okay” to eat your allergen. There will be consequences. While I might have gotten away with one meal that wasn’t gluten-free (maybe even two, because my threshold for reaction is fairly high now) I was never going to get away with two days of it.

Could we have planned for a natural disaster? Of course not. But we could have put our feet down and said that we had to have gluten-free food.

For my next trip, I’m definitely going to do the following:

1. Pack food in my carry on! Whether the flight is going home or going away, I’ll be carrying at least some food that will work for us even if the food on the plane does not.
2. When I pack that food, I will include some suitable emergency rations. I’m thinking crackers and other dry food that will keep. A source of protein would be good too; maybe some roasted pumpkin seeds.
3. I will make sure that I keep whatever remedies – Benadryl, other antihistamines, herbal and homeopathic remedies – that help when a reaction happens. We didn’t have any of these remedies in our carry on luggage! Our main luggage had been put on a plane and they didn’t want to give it back to us for security reasons. This was a real hassle.
4. Should I ever get caught in a natural disaster again, I’m going to do whatever it takes to eat the right food! If necessary, that will include not eating. I suspect feeling hungry is much better than feeling like I did with a gluten reaction.