Atopic Dermatitis Safe Necklace

Strings and Baubles

The first time I heard the term atopic dermatitis was when my sister was a teenager and I was in my freshman year of college.  I had come home for a break and my sister had just been diagnosed.  For years I had seen my sister break out in these crazy painful looking rashes around her neck, ears, and wrists etc.  Her skin would look cracked and would bleed. Even worse it looked like I could pull chunks of her skin off if I tried. I can only imagine how much it actually hurt.  I am sure it was even more frustrating that she had a diagnosis but it still took a long time to figure out all of the triggers.  She has to be very careful with anything that touches skin, even for what I would consider fleeting moments.  This level of allergic reaction I can now understand on a different level since I have a son with food allergies that could kill him in minutes.  I still don’t think I understand in the same way as the one who has to deal with the allergy.  I won’t ever know what it’s like to not be able to eat something I want or wear something I like because it could kill or disfigure my body.  However, I am aware that this is a struggle for some.

 So what do you do if you have an allergy that is severe? You really have very few options.  You can change so you don’t kill, disfigure, or put yourself in extreme pain all the time.  Or you don’t and you must deal with the consequences.  I wouldn’t really consider that much of a choice. To be blunt, I think it sucks.  There is nothing I can do to make it better. No magic potion to drink or spell like in Harry Potter to get rid of these allergies for my loved ones.  So I make the choice I can make; I adjust how I interact with them.  It’s not discrimination its consideration.

So when I considered my sisters allergies, which I still don’t have completely mastered (YET), I thought about how I really wanted to make her a steam punk inspired necklace last year.  However, a lot of those components are things she is allergic to.  I could try to paint some clear barriers on top of the metal but then I am left wondering; is she going to break out from the coating, what if the coating rubs off, what if I don’t paint it thick enough?  It seemed too great a risk to take with her skin. You know you have given a really lame present when it literally causes them pain. At least when it’s not the: I laughed so hard my face, and stomach hurts and I nearly peed my pants pain, I am ok with that kind of pain.

 

So I started thinking about what components are safe. Plastic seems to be safe and a thread I have that is designed for crocheting dollies.  Crocheted dollies, now that’s a funny picture in connection with that sister.  I apologize, side tangent.  Which lead me to think, where can I find plastic gears??? And things along those lines.  I tried to pull things apart as I thought about it to see what was inside.  I often guessed wrong. I did find some very interesting shapes sometimes on the inside that were plastic but not a lot of plastic gears.

 

In the end I took the plastic I found and added little bits and bobs to it with the dollie thread.  (Sorry I don’t know the real name of that kind of thread.)  Slowly adding layers of things till it look right to me, which I never fully reached..In the end I knew it was missing one component to make it perfect and I couldn’t figure out what it was.  I was stuck.  So I tried to listen to the Holy Ghost to see if He could prompt me on what I was missing.  The answer I got was frustrating and yet I was still grateful for it.  “You don’t have the part that you can tell is missing. You will not be able to finish it” After that I got that answer I sighed and accepted that it would have to be the best I could do.  And after a few minutes of thought, I smiled; I will have to just keep trying.