I still can’t believe it.  We went into the allergist for an oral challenge for pecans yesterday.  I was nervous going in since Dean has never had a nut his life.   I thought he would fail for sure and ruin any chance of him willingly trying to eat a nut again versus waiting until his pecan IgE blood levels were a little lower and closer to negative.  But off we went, and thanks to Matt for pushing the limits (and pushing me to move forward against them).

Dean started by eating one-quarter of a pecan, waiting 15 minutes, and after no reaction, eating a whole one.  After another 15 minutes, the nurse fed him 2.  Wait another 15 minutes, Dean asking, “When can I have more pecans?”  He loved them!  Move onto 4 and then I started to panic, and worry…A LOT.  I had to leave because I was on the verge of tears a few times.  ‘If there is a delayed reaction, he’s for sure going to need an epi-pen at this point.’  The thought of actually getting past 1 or 2 pecans never even occurred to me!  I thought for sure we’d go in, try it, he’d break into hives after a piece of one or a whole one and we’d say, ‘Well, we tried.  Cross that off the list.  Maybe try again next year.’  I can’t believe we’re actually moving forward still?!  Then he got 8 and nothing happened.  And then we finally went back down to 5 because Dean was full.  And I slowly started to relax.  And started tearing up because ‘Could it possibly be true?  Could Dean actually not be allergic to a nut?  Calm down.  Calm down.  Last time, he passed his oat challenge and then didn’t get past the 24 hour mark.’  But it’s true.  He DID pass, and it’s been over 24 hours without any reaction so it seems official.  Our son, Dean, is no longer allergic to pecans!

Next up – walnuts.  February 16.

I can’t believe I haven’t posted an update since a year ago.  Where does the time go?

The last few weeks have been emotional for many people on many levels and for us, this has been no different on the allergy front.

We had Dean’s annual check-up on October 5th.  We only tested the borderline allergens, 9 of them, to see if any of them have decreased enough to try an oral food challenge.  This process gets tougher each year as Dean is old enough to understand what is about to happen and able to articulate his feelings.  While we know this testing is in his best interests, it doesn’t make it any easier to go through.  As he is pricked with a needle a total of 13 times to test 9 allergens + 2 controls, draw blood, and get a flu shot while we’re at it, his tears and cries of “Ow!  Mom!” and that look of ‘help me’ in those big brown eyes bring me close to tears each time.  In his blood testing, the same 9 allergens are tested in addition to his more severe allergens, a total of 21.

1 minute after tiny needle prick of allergen

15 minutes later – Imagine what is happening on the inside if ingested!

Continue reading →

June marked Dean’s annual allergy testing and man, was it a big one. Every year, we perform the skin prick tests on less severe food allergens and draw blood to check both those as well as his more severe allergens. The idea is to see if any of the physical reactions and IgE allergy response levels drop enough that you can try to introduce the food back in at home or if borderline, perform an oral challenge in the doctor’s office. You can also see if any more severe allergies are going down in the hopes that he will eventually outgrow them. What a fantastic way to spend your birthday right?!

This go around, we also had to perform an oral challenge for ibuprofen where he is fed small doses of medicine three times in 15 minutes as well as a subcutaneous challenge for penicillin where they inject the medicine under the skin of his forearm in three locations. Then we wait for three hours to see if a reaction ensues. Because this takes a long time, appointments are scarce, and calendar coordinating is even more challenging, we weren’t able to get in until the end of July.
These visits are rough on our little man. After 20 needle pokes and four hours in the doctor’s office, you just hope it’s all worth it and some progress is made. Continue reading →

I’ve never thought of my son, Dean, as tough.  He’s sensitive in a way that little things that really aren’t a big deal set him off.  (Note to self, what things were a big deal when I was two?)  And once he’s going, there is no recovery.  Think uncontrollable tears, crying so hard there’s gagging, no rationalization, and no consoling.  Often times I think, “Dean.  Really.  This is embarrassing.” but what does a two-year old boy know about embarrassing?

What I will tell you is that my image of Dean as the opposite of tough has been changing recently.  Case and point, he just started learning to ride a tricycle the past week.  To put this in perspective, Kate didn’t start riding this thing well until three and a half; Dean is two years and two months.  It’s way too big for him but he does amazingly well…for the most part.  He’s fallen over three times that I’ve seen.  There may be one brief burst of a cry but five seconds later, he gets right back up, gets back on, and rides that thing over and over again as if nothing happened.  I could not have imagined this happening a year ago.  One fall would have been at least fifteen minutes of crying…no joke.

I had a recent experience where I could see firsthand how unbelievably uncomfortable life must be when Dean has an allergic reaction.  For an 8-day period in August, I had multiple days of unexplained allergic reactions which were quite frankly, debilitating at times.  I had so many hives and constant itching, I felt miserable, couldn’t focus on anything, tried hard not to claw at my skin, frustrated at what was going on, and sleep-deprived since I was being woken up by itching two or three times a night.  To summarize, I was in the ER twice in 6 days, once when I had profuse hives covering most of my body except parts of my face and feet and another morning when I woke up with hives, my lips were starting to swell, and I was feeling a tightness in my throat.  I left the ER the second time with a prescription for an epi-pen…like son like mom? Continue reading →

Matt and I just returned from our trip to Japan two weeks ago.  When people ask how our trip was, I am really having a difficult time articulating just how amazing it was.  Nothing really does it justice.  Unlike our other international trips to Australia and Africa, etc. there’s not much to say really.  No hot air balloon rides, overnight open air tree house stays in the middle of safari lands twenty minutes from civilization, or helicopter rides in awe over one of the seven wonders of the world.  Instead, it was lots of heat, walking, eating, drinking, and just enjoying the company of the many welcoming helpful Japanese people we met along the way.

This trip was a little different than our usual ways of traveling as we literally did no planning leading up to it.  Normally, before a big trip like this, I would be researching all the top culinary destinations, booking reservations in advance, and counting down the days until our next greatest meal.  Frankly, there just wasn’t time for it this go around.  The ultimate irony of this is that Japan has the highest number of Michelin-starred restaurants.  I don’t even recognize myself!

But being frank, it was awesome.  No set plans, no dinner reservations to stick to, no expectations.  We dined on local recommendations, interesting places we walked by without having a clue what anything said on the menu, or the next place we came across when we were (OK fine, I was) starving or in desperate need of a bathroom.

I thought about Dean a lot when we were there (of course, I thought about Kate too) but I thought about Dean from the perspective of how challenging this trip would be if I were him.  And I thought about how difficult spontaneity is when you live with food allergies, particularly a plethora of them, and how people really can’t begin to understand how life-altering this is without having experienced it.  Continue reading →