Life with a Child with Food Allergies

This title may become a new blog for me as I am learning that life with a child with food allergies is a whole new world.  It is a SCARY world!!!!  We went out to eat last night and discussed how service and even food taste is now behind how we are treated in regards to S's allergies in our list of pros/cons for restaurants.  Since finding out about S being severely allergic to eggs we have had many restaurants that have been wonderful in helping us find something Monkey can eat and making sure he does not get anything with eggs.  Some of the best were Chick-fil-a, Fuddruckers, Santana's, Dick's Drive-in, Di'lishi, Captian Tom's, Wendy's, Dippers, Pizza Hut, and Papa John's.  Some of these places have told us they were not sure about something we were going to get S and told us to pick something else.  I totally appreciate and respect this.  However, we have  found one KFC in Eden that tried to kill him. We went in our local KFC (Eden, NC) on June 7th at lunchtime with our 11 year old and 16 month old.  Our 16th month old has a severe egg allergy.   There were only about 3 people eating in the restaurant and no one in line.  We asked if the chicken had egg in it.  The cashier didn't know and asked the manager.  The manager, very rudely, told us that none of their chicken had egg, it just had seasoning on it. We also asked about peanut oil because we have been told to avoid nuts.  The manager was very rude and let us know by her words and actions that she didn't want to be bothered by our questions.  It was so obvious that our 11 year old picked up on it and said, "I'm sorry we are just trying to not have to use his EpiPen."  My husband ordered the chicken bites and shared with our 16 month old.  He started breaking out with red dots around his mouth so we gave him Benadryl and stopped feeding him.   That night my husband got on the internet to file a complaint about the manager, and was livid when he saw the allergy list on KFC website which showed that what we gave our son, because the manger told us it did not have eggs, in fact did.  He filed a complaint stating what happened, that we would never be back, and asked to be contacted.  While discussing our situation with friends (we have told everyone) we were told that a friend who can not have gluten was told that one of their chicken from the same restaurant we dealt with did not have gluten in it and it did causing him to get very sick.  We got a form letter today apologizing for the inconvenience (the possibility of my child dying is more than an inconvenience) and 10 $1 gift certificates (they are in the trash can).  The letter does not say anything about the situation being addressed so I called the number on the letter and spoke to the owner.  He started trying to tell me that the chicken did not have eggs.  I informed him that was not what the KFC website said.  I told him that if the Benadryl had not worked, we would have been suing them.  I tried to make him understand that this is a life or death situation as we have been told by the doctor that he could stop breathing the next time he gets eggs.  The owner replied with, "in all our years of operation, we have never had an issue with eggs."   He never came out and said they would do better training their staff about allergies so I am even madder and more concerned than I was before.  I am terrified for other people with food allergies having an even worse experience than we did.  I hope and pray it doesn't take someone dying before this owner and manager takes it as the serious matter that it is and does a better job informing their staff about allergies.