So, I've gone from slacker blogger to basically nonexistent blogger, it seems. And it's been brought to my attention that I failed to give an update on the allergy stuff. Wasn't intentional. I keep thinking I need to post it, but I only think about it when I can't sit down at a computer. Sorry about that.
The other day I was talking to Ryan about how it's wild that I'm a stay-at-home mom (who actually spends most of the time at home, plus I watch a little girl a few days a week), and this one day when we were about to sit down for dinner, I realized I hadn't sat down for even five minutes all day long. My feet were killing me! How does that happen? Welcome to my life, right? (I'm sure many other stay-at-home moms feel the same way!) Here I'm at home all day long and don't get to sit for a good meal hardly. And my husband, who works out of the home, sits at a desk all day. (One day he was telling me about something he was reading online and then said, "What? You never get bored and just look around at stuff like that?"
What? Bored?? I've forgotten what that feels like...)
Anyway, back to the allergies...
Answers? Um, not really. Not in the way we wanted. Went to the dr. We first saw a different doctor (who was distracted that morning and forgot she had told us to come in first thing and we waited for her for an hour... This was after we drove nearly an hour to get there and had to go through parking and all that jazz at the hospital.) Oh well. It was fun sitting in that little room with a two-year-old for an hour (not really, but they did have some children's videos that helped...good thing we were in the Children's Hospital part). So, she saw us, got the history. We told her what we knew, thought, etc. Let her know we wanted to discuss more allergy testing. The other doctor would be in to see us soon.
Well, instead, a nurse came in and just went ahead doing some skin testing. This annoyed me b/c I had to ASK what they were testing for... Um, hello? You don't just come in and start pricking my child with things and not tell me what the heck they are first. And I had said I wanted to speak with the dr about this first, so this meant I didn't get to voice what I wanted to have tested. They just tested some of the top allergens - various nuts, fish, and eggs. I wanted a more comprehensive test. Two strikes.
The dr did come in, as well as the lady we first saw. Good news is that, while Aiden did react a bit to the egg, they think he might be outgrowing it (we go back in October for a food challenge). And he gave us the go-ahead to gradually introduce nuts and shellfish, since there was no reaction to those.
The rest wasn't all that great. First of all, he didn't get all the history correct (or I guess the first dr that saw us didn't communicate it all correctly). He was telling us he wasn't sure if these hives were caused by an allergic reaction to the food (cinnamon) or if it was caused by an infection. But we later realized he had believed the BIG hive reaction was at the beginning of all of this, which it wasn't - it was at the end. And other stuff that made us believe he didn't get the whole story right. Anyway, he told us there is no skin test for cinnamon. He didn't want to do a blood test. He made it sound like it wasn't very accurate, but he did it b/c he could tell we wanted some answers. He put Aiden on Zyrtec until we go back to see him in late October. After that, we'll discuss doing a food challenge with cinnamon. We're hoping he'll let us do it at home (doubtful, but we'll see). All these specialist visits...well, they're not cheap, and it takes a lot of time (Ryan also takes off work for the big ones or ones that involve testing/food challenges). We left feeling like we just didn't get any answers, like we wasted a lot of time and frustration. Not to mention all the waiting, etc, Aiden is terrified of doctor's offices now after having shots recently, and each time we go to a different room, the screaming starts all over again (we were in three different rooms there).
But as we left the last room, where they drew the blood (this won't help with any future dr visits for Aiden, I'm sure), we quietly walked towards the waiting room to leave. We passed a little girl, maybe 7 or 8 years old, bald, and wearing a protective mask. I don't know what she is dealing with, but doesn't God have a way of putting things in perspective. Anything we're dealing with can't even be close to what she's going through, so I took it as a reminder to be grateful. A reminder I clearly needed.
So, we'll see what the dr says when we visit at the end of October. We do have the egg-challenge in a few weeks, so hopefully Aiden will come home from that able to eat some eggs. That will make life a bit easier. We've pretty much adjusted, but still. There are many things he can't have simply due to possible contamination issues, and it would be nice to not have to avoid so much. We're hoping he won't have to be on the Zyrtec for much longer, too. I've heard so many times (from doctors) that it is often prescribed as a sleep aid for children - even moreso than for allergies. And so many others have told me that it helped their little ones sleep better (or even too much!). We don't like having Aiden take medicine regularly, but we kind of thought, hey...silver lining. Maybe he'll will sleep a little better. Nope. Definitely not. Actually, he started waking more during the night again! We've switched giving him the medicine in the mornings, and it seems to have helped, but still. Would have been nice! Ha! Oh well. We still have some waiting to do before we can know anything. That's the most frustrating part: not knowing for sure. We're the kind of people that like to know. Until we do know more, we're to act as if this is a definite allergy and avoid it. We've gotten used to calling companies. Some aren't that great with giving out (or knowing!) the information, and some are fantastic. I've made a few things with different spices instead of cinnamon (and they've turned out ok, I guess). But hopefully within the next couple months we'll have it all sorted out!
And I'll try to remember to update the ol' blog. ;)
