Christmas 2008

Christmas was good, Nathan had so much fun opening presents and playing with his new toys!!

For Christmas Eve dinner Nathan had Ham, potatoes, corn. He loved his ham, I have never seen him eat so much meat. I am thinking he likes salty foods because he also really loved the black olives.

Christmas Baking

Nathan and I made Rice Krispy Houses and decorated them. It was nice to find something that he wasn't allergic too and came in a box kit so we had everything we needed. I think he liked eating the gumdrops more then decorating. We had fun!

Nathan and Santa

Nathan liked Santa and talked to him, I was surprised. The bank I work at has this Santa come to the main branch every year for an employee family holiday party. The kids get a really nice hardcover book from Santa and Nathan was in love because the book they gave this year was The Polar Express and there was a holiday display done with a train theme and the kids get punch, cookies (I just brought a cookie for him from home so he wouldn't be left out), Christmas tattoos and tons of candy canes. It was fun!

Phone Call from the Doctor

I just received a phone call from Nathan's allergist, the actual Doctor - not the nurse. I was shocked that she was calling me on a Friday afternoon.

She had the results to Nathan's blood tests from last week and she had the results from his previous blood work to compare.

Peanuts/Nuts: She said that his peanut allergy went down so it is low. Peanut allergy is not the one I care about, avoiding peanuts isn't hard, I can find lots of foods that don't have peanuts. He doesn't need peanuts to survive.

She said his Almond went up, again who cares and he is not allergic to pecans at all but he is young and doesn't care about nuts so we just avoid them all!!

Milk: This went down and is the lowest of his allergies, good news and since it went down he has a better chance of possibly growing out of it.

Egg: MOST ALLERGIC TOO. Eggs went up for him and it is the highest allergen for him. Not good news since the chance of possibly growing out it is less. Great, how is going to go to school and eat birthday treats, every cake and cookie is made with eggs, no Sunday mornings of eating an egg breakfast or french toast. His life flashed before my eyes when she read this to me.

Wheat: Went down, but not too much. Wheat would be nice to get rid off because again every, noodle, cracker, cookie, bread, cake etc. is made with wheat flour.

I asked her when and which ones are low enough to food challenge? She said lately the food challenges she has done have been disappointing. The numbers are low but the reactions are still there. Like a False-Positive. She wants to take blood again in the Spring and decide from there. Also she would like to wait until he is a little older and can tell us if he has a reaction that we can't see such as tingling lips, etc. Makes sense.

Then on the weight questions again!! Maybe I will just feed him potato chips and candy everyday, he will have to gain and then maybe everyone will leave me alone!!

Urgent Care

I picked up Nathan from daycare at 4:45pm and the teacher tells me that Nathan complained of his arm/wrist hurting at 4pm. They didn't see him fall and they put ice on his wrist, wrote up an accident report. When I was there he was still complaining his arm hurt and wouldn't use it.

When we got home, we looked at him and decided he needed to get to urgent care to get checked out. We think he has the "nursemaid elbow" again (he had it in June). The Doctor said that she agreed and it is the same arm. She tried to "pop" it back into place and he cried, so hard. She thinks he heard a pop but he wasn't immediately better like last time. She thinks that it might take longer to recover because it took longer to get treated this time. We went to the waiting room and watched him play to see if he could use his right arm again and at first he didn't bust after a while he did. We went home.

I told daycare that if ever complains of his arm hurting to call me right away. He could just hurt it from swinging his arm too hard.

Merry Christmas!!

We want to wish you a Very Merry Christmas!!

Love,

Jeanette, Steve and Nathan

Allergies in the family

I found out that on my husbands side of the family there are allergies, his cousin had some allergies when he was younger and his nephew who is 5 years old was recently diagnosed with a peanut allergy and has Asthma.

I don't wish any of Nathan's problems on anyone but I am glad to finally know where Nathan is getting he allergies and asthma from. Everytime the Doctors would ask us if it is in the family we would say "no" and they would give us strange looks. It just makes more sense now.