Tuesday, 15 July 2008

  • The Peanut Challenge

    I haven't written in a while because life is super crazy. And I get stuck in this rut thinking that I have to update you with every single detail about my whereabouts for the last month and a half. To do that, would take about 5 GB of space on the servers so I will spare you that. If you want to know about what's happening in my life- the cool job that I got, the even cooler husband I have who's home with the kids for the summer, my boys who are doing just fine except for the fact that I'm not home, and the struggle I have internally about transitioning from being home full time to not being home full time.... and the moments I have where I'm fully trusting that God will work all things out for my (and my family's) good, and the moments where I waver from faith and worry about what's next...... if you're interested in hearing about it, call me. We can meet for coffee or a glass of wine and talk about it.

    But today I wanted to share with you about our Peanut Challenge. When BB was about 15 months old we discovered he has a nut allergy of some sorts. By this time he had already tasted the goodness that is peanut butter (and jelly) and had no reaction. But since he was under 2, the doctor said to hold off on any sort of nuts. On his 2nd birthday party, we had another episode that involved a white chocolate macadamia cookie that was confiscated by BB 5 minutes before people were showing up for his party.... and he had a pretty scary cough/gag/hives episode that was thankfully curbed by a few doses of Benadryl. After that happened, I knew it was time to see an allergist to find out what was really going on.

    So a month ago, we had our allergy scratch test-his poor little back, full of little allergen samples. I had to hold him still so that he wouldn't scratch. The results? An allergy to dust, grass, corn, tomatoes, and cashews. But since he had 2 reactions to different nuts, he also had to have a blood test, of which the results all came back negative. Since there were conflicting results between the scratch test and the blood test, the doc ordered a food challenge.

    First round: Peanuts.

    We had our Peanut challenge today- we showed up at the doc's office with a jar of peanut butter and a spoon, and spent an hour slowly administering peanut butter to my little guy. Boy, did he love it! And, the results were negative! Yay!!! We don't have to ban peanuts from our home.

    On friday we go back with a bag of almonds. I didn't even know that there was a significant difference between peanuts and other nuts-- almonds, cashews, macadamias-- all tree nuts. peanuts, are related to the legume family. Interesting, eh? Doc said we may have to avoid all tree nuts altogether because he had such a severe reaction to the cashews already. And yes, we carry an epi pen now too.

    So that's it for now. Good night!
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