living life with a highly allergic kid

I’m done. Me and bravo, we quit. No more allergies. No more reactions. No more stupid fucking allergies.

You hear me, allergy gods?

I’m done.

Too bad you don’t give a crap about us.

I’m angry right now.

And I’m sad.

And I’m heartbroken for my sweet bravo.

And I’m tired.

Wow, am I ever tired.

I hate allergies. I hate what they do to lives.

I hate that people don’t understand them.

I hate that they are seen as a “nuisance” for non-allergic families.

I hate that the word "allergy" is so over-used and is used to describe "my belly hurts" or 'my eyes are itchy". which, yes, it may be annoying, but every person complaining of their mild irritations from allergies really lessens the impact when you say your child is allergic to multiple foods. I'm not talking about a stomach ache. I'm talking about potential death.

I hate the worry that comes with them.

I hate the fear I live in.

I hate telling my beautiful boy that he can’t have what others are eating.

I hate having to pretend everything is fine.

I hate trying to be positive about it all.

I hate living like this.
I hate that it’s happening to my sweet tiny boy.

I hate that at any second some benign particle could wind up in bravos system and take him away from me.

I hate that we will never have all the answers. Just when we think we have his allergies all pinned down he has yet another reaction to some new food.

I hate it when people tell me there are worse things that could happen to our family. Yup. I know that. There are much worse chronic medical conditions that bravo could have. Aren’t we lucky that we only have allergies. Because it’s easy and fun. And I’m not worried about him dying every single day.

I hate that kids with multiple anaphylactic food allergies are not covered under the disability act. They have no protection, no rights, no one fighting for them but their ill-equipped parents, no laws to protect them in school (unless you happen to live in Ontario where they have Sabrina’s Law which was passed because a child died of allergies in a school), no help for the insane costs associated with the grocery bill of multiple food allergy kids.

I went to the health food store yesterday. I bought 2 bags of allergy-free chocolate chips, 1 tub of soy free/ dairy free yogurt, 1 tub of bravo- safe margarine,  and 2 small jars of sunflower seed butter. And it cost $68. If I went to walmart and bought the same items in a non-allergic form it would have been under $20. But according to the government having multiple food allergies does not present a financial challenge to families. Clearly nobody that’s in the decision making department has ever lived with this. The funny thing is that people with celiac disease can write off their food. BUT… if a person has an allergy to wheat and barley they do NOT get to claim the exact same foods. Even though it could cause anaphylaxis and death. Which apparently is not as bad as the stomach problems caused by celiac. (please anybody reading this that has celiac don’t take offense. You should be helped, I’m not mad at you. And I know it’s worse than a belly ache and it’s a serious disease. I just think the system is stupid and I’m angry right now.)

BUT.. on the good side, we don’t have to buy the $6 miniscule tub of soy free dairy free yogurt any more. Because, surprise, Bravo is allergic to it. I have no idea what in it caused the allergy. I need to study the ingredients and do some research on it. It might be coconut. So until we know otherwise, I guess we’re adding one more food to our Avoid List. Which, by the way, is getting really stupid.

oh- an update. I googled every single ingredient on the list and it's most likely locust extract, which is from the carob bean, which we had been avoiding. Stupid me didn't know that locust extract is another name for carob bean. Super.

I feel like I'm failing bravo. His poor little system just needs a break.

My first post today was much happier but i couldn't wait to post this becasue I'm just so sad and anrgy.

I love my boys.

a.b.c.d.e.f.g.h.i.j.k…….

l.m.n.o.POO!

Did you know that’s how the alphabet goes?? Ask Alpha or Bravo, they’ll tell you. Over and over and over. And shockingly it was Bravo who came up with this clever little gem, NOT Alpha.

We were sitting at the supper table having a normal conversation (well, as normal of a conversation as you can have with a 2.5  and a 4 yr old boy) and we were talking about what they should take for alphabet show & tell at nursery school. Bravo said he wanted to wear pajamas for show and tell, and I told him he had to wait until P day.

Do you see where this is headed?

“No, poo day!” ugh. Bravo, not THAT kind of p. Which led into a discussion about pee vs. pea vs. p. Which Bravo promptly ignored and then just started talking more about Poo Day. And L M N O Poo. And poo soup. And poo pancakes. And poo cake.

At that point Alpha joined in the fun and all I heard about for the remainder of the day was various words connected with the word “poo.”

And you know what Charlie was doing during this charming little supper? Killing himself laughing at his brothers.

Sigh. Welcome to your life, Chrissy. Want a poo pancake?

Move over, Keith Moon

If you know more about music than I do (which really is NOT a hard thing to accomplish) you will know about Keith Moon. The only reason I know about him is becasue Matthew is a music nerd with close to 600 cds wasting space on my bookshelf. And he talks about Keith Moon being the best drummer of all time ever. I think maybe he was in The Who? I might be wrong. Don't tell Matt. Anyways. Whenerb Matt says something about a drummer my answer is always "ya, but he's not as good as Keith Moon" pretending I know something about drumming. Or care. It usually gets me a slap on my behind.

So Matt has a little red drum kit that he loves but hasn't got to spend much time using the last 6 years. Becasue first we lived in a rental house that was 460 sq feet. I'm not kidding. No room in there to lie on the floor, let alone set up a drum kit. Then we moved and had a basement but then had kids. Alpha like the drums from about 1-3, but never really did that much with them. So Matt's been saying he's going to sell them (even though I know he REALLY doesn't want to, he just knows the space would be nice as would the money) and I (even though I would REALLY like to re-claim that basement space) keep telling him not to. And this is exactly why:

3 days ago Alpha had it in his head that he really really really wants to play the drums, so I said maybe Daddy would give him a drum lesson. Well, the second Matt came homw Alpha was on top of him begging for a drum lesson.So while I made dinner Matt gave Alpha a drum lesson. And I could hear the cuteness of it all. He was learning all sorts of actual techinacl things (that I know I can't do- Matt has tried to teach me and I'm just really really bad at understanding anything to do with rythem) and Alpha was doing great. And every now and then I'd hear the drums go crazy and Matt would yell "ya! Drum Solo!!" then it would be back to the lesson. After the third lesson Matt took Alpha into the living room and put on some loud annoying music music with lots of drumming and with Keith Moon. Alpha listened for a while making a comment every now and then about how it was really good and he really likes the drums and that the drummer is really really good at drums.... "but not as good as me." awesome. Move over, Keith Moon, here comes Alpha Jennings. Matt didn't have the heart to tell him that Keith Moon is in fact better at drumming but did say that with lots of practice that he has no doubt that could be true one day.

As an aside Alpha keeps saying that he and Bravo are in a band together. And that they have to go have band practice. I asked what the band was called. He looked at me like I was really stupid and said (and you could hear his eyes roll when he said it) "our band is called Rock, Mommy." Of course it is. Rock. At least you know what kind of music you're getting.

pregnancy

Oh pregnancy. How I love and loathe thee at the same time. Sometimes the love is stronger, sometimes the loathe.

Love:

1. Feeling a tiny little person moving around, doing summersaults, moving, playing with its fingers and toes, kicking in the ribs. I even love the painful movements of third trimester (though I grumble, I really do love it.) It’s a little less fun when ribs get moved because baby think s it’s awesome to stick his bum in there and then never move away (thanks, Alpha), but it’s just a wonderful feeling.

2. Watching my other kids love up the little baby. Alpha and Bravo regularly talk to my belly. Alpha has felt the baby kick him a few times now and then he over-reacts and rolls onto the floor saying “oooh, baby, you’re so strong, you knocked me all the way across the room”. Adorable.

3. knowing that I have life inside of me. It’s pretty incredible.

4. Feeling confident in my belly and body. Pregnancy is the one time of my life I’m not worried about my body image or how far my belly sticks out. It’s all good. The belly is SUPPOSED to be huge. And I seem to be one of the lucky pregnant women who simply look like they swallowed a beach ball and weight goes away from my face and legs and everywhere else and lands straight to my belly.

5. The fact that when it’s all over it ends with this incredible rush of joy and emotion and a tiny tiny perfect little wonderful-smelling new baby.

6. Pants without zippers. Handy. Just pull ‘em down and you’re good to pee! It always takes me a while to re-adjust to zippered pants.

7. Looking at tiny new-born clothes and going through the clothing in storage and washing and folding and sorting it and imagining the tiny person that will fill those tiny sleepers.

8. Naming small people. Coming up with all these names and trying them out with the other kids’ names and how they fit and what type of personality would come with the name. I guess it’s the dreaming part of pregnancy that I like. Dreaming of the name and the person and what they’ll be like and who they’ll turn out to be, and which sibling they’ll bond with the most as the years go on. Boy? Girl? It’s fun. Sure, it comes with heartburn (oooh, heartburn) but I love the dreaming.

Loathe:

1. Round ligament pain. It seems to be particularly bad this go-around. I woke up thinking I was dying and my belly was being torn in half. Then I recognized the agonizing pain of my too-big belly not being supported by a pillow and stretching these horrible round ligaments to the point of them screaming in my side. So bring on the body pillow. Today they were just so stretched out from last night that any time I move at all pain goes ripping down my side. Comfy.

2. Heartburn. Ooooh, heartburn. I would shake my fist at you but that would probably make you worse. Matthew thinks that copious amounts of Tums Is what makes our kids so darn cute.

3. The incredible instability of my emotions. Curse you, Pampers commercials! Why is your goal to make pregnant women cry? I’m still not buying your stinky smelly diapers, thank you very much. And now my face is red and blotchy. Jerks.

4. Not being able to take NeoCitran and other wonderful sick-relieving drugs. Though I suppose having a child born with all its appendages is worth the discomfort, but STILL.

5. The fact that pregnancy ends in labour and then post-partum. Yuck.

6. The worry of 40 weeks of pregnancy. Being terrified that something will go wrong. This is worse this go-around after Thomas, but it was bad with all of them. And then it leads to a life-time of worrying about your little person. That part I don’t mind so much. Worrying about them when they’re on the outside is easier because then at least you can hug them and smell their sweet little heads. But worrying about them on the inside is just so hard. How many times with the four of them have I poked and prodded my belly after drinking juice and laying on my left side just willing the kid to kick me in the ribs?

7. All the strangers who think that just because you have a cute belly means that you WANT to talk to them. I didn’t like people before I got pregnant, I certainly don’t like them now!

8. Trying to name small peoples. I am really out of names. And if this poor child is a boy it’s screwed. Alpha want to name him Bob after his teddy bear, and at this point it’s all we’ve got! Baby Bob. Named after a small brown bear. Either that or “Storm Trooper”. We’ve gotta get thinking on this…..

Personal accomplishments.

Go Me!!

In the last bit, I, Chrissy Jennings, have:

A)       Posted every single weekday starting last Tuesday. Truth be told I’m writing a few of them at work on Saturdays and them email them to myself and then post them all on delayed posts on Sunday night and then I don’t have to do anything for the rest of the week except to think of random stupid thing (like this) that I want to post! Yup- I’m awesome.

B)      Stopped biting my nails. And mostly stopped ripping my nails. I have not had nails since…… I think I was 6? I have a vivid memory of my dad clipping my nails down to bleeding because I scratched y brother’s face (he totally deserved it, they just didn’t see that then) and I don’t really think they had to get cut after that. Right- this is about nails. I have them!! I went to itch my arm the other day and was shocked because it kind of hurt because I was scratching with nails and not finger tips. Yay me!! It’s been 3 weeks and I only worried one nail off because I was in a movie theatre and it snagged and then I had 2 hours that I tried to deal but couldn’t so I ripped it off and then filed at home. I must get a file for my pocket.

C)       As mentioned in B., I went to a movie. Now, this may not seem like a personal accomplishment, but it is, my dear friends, it is. Because first- it was a grown up movie. No cartoons, no potty humour, no talking puppies, none of that crap wonderful stuff. Second- it was with my husband. It was a real date!! Grandma had the boys, we ditched for supper and then just went out the two of us. For three hours. Alone. Boo ya!

D)      Had three showers this week. Granted 2 of them were because I had the stomach flu and being covered in sweat and vomit is gross, but still. 3 is pretty good.( Actually as I write this it’s Saturday and I’m planning on showering tonight so....) let’s change this to:

I had 4 showers last week!!!!! Now, this may not seem like an accomplishment. But trust me, it is. I usually get 2 in, and on a really really good week (or bad- depending, sometimes getting pooped or peed on helps my showering cause) I’ll have 3. So 4 in one week is…. Really really awesome.

E)      Speaking of really awesome… I spent a whole day in bed mostly sleeping. And I read a magazine and played on my iPod touch and really didn’t move out of bed. I think I rolled out of it at 2pm and was back in it at 8pm, and stayed in it until 8:15 the next morning. OK. In my fantasy this is really awesome. How many times have I said ‘I just don’t want to get out of bed today”? A lot. HOWEVER… in my day dreams of spending all day in bed I am not barfing into a Ziploc container. And I can move without barfing. And I’m not doped up on gravol. But whatever, I can’t have everything, right?? Matthew was a wonderful man and took the day off so I could die in bed all day. I’m not sure how I would have handled life that day if he had not done that. And then after the kids were in bed he went to buy me some soup because we had run out and it’s all I wanted to eat and he was worried about the child inside of me getting only 2 crackers and a tin of ginger ale.

F)       I sat down and did crafts with the boys. This may also not sound like an accomplishment, but I felt like super mom. We made clouds out of a lot of glue, cotton balls, and cereal boxes. The clouds are now on their wall along with their name airplanes (red paint, white letters, and cereal boxes) to make their airplane room look amazing. Doing crafts with Alpha and Bravo is tricky. Because one paint brush is identical to the other way better than the other one, and one red crayon is bigger than the other, and one tinfoil plate has more glue on it and anyways, let’s race. Around the house. At top speed. Holding red paint brushes. Sigh……. But we did it!! And it was actually pretty fun and the world didn’t end and there was only a wee bit of bickering and the red paint came off the floor. Maybe as they get older I’ll get braver and do more. Thank goodness they go to playschool where they have somebody that has the energy to do crafts.

G)      I made a menu plan for the next 2 weeks. Sticking to it will require more planning and time to do a real shop- but I did it!

Mmm, I think that’s it. I know this all sounds pretty mundane and boring, and I guess it is, but it’s life as Mom for Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, and almost Delta, and I love it. Well, I could do with less puke (mine and everybody else’s) but other than that, I have a pretty awesome life. And I have nails!!!!!

Oh wait... one more to add.

Friends

I’ve been thinking a lot about friendship lately. How they start, change, end, re-grow, all of that. Watching Alpha decide who his friends are is kind of funny. His favourite right now is a boy from playschool because we went to his house and he has the same Plo Koon Lego ship as Alpha. And, well, if you can’t base a friendship on Plo koon, what can you base a friendship on?? Alpha is really bad with names though, so this friend is referred to in our house as “my Plo Koon friend”. Which makes me laugh. At least it’s clear what this friendship is based on. Other of Alpha and Bravo's friends are only based on my friends and their children. And mostly that has worked out. Thankfully the Plo Koon friend has a really nice mom AND a child the same age as Bravo, too. And Charlie doesn’t really care yet, as long as there is a toilet to try to get into or stairs to climb.

Last year both Alpha and Bravo’s favourite friend is a boy who lives across the alley. Because we see him a lot and because he’s older than Alpha by 9 months so he’s SUPER COOL because he can do cooler things AND he’s in kindergarten.

Alpha also adores people littler than Bravo. About 18 months and under Alpha is just drawn to. He loves making other babies laugh or grab his face. He loves stroking their heads when they’re really little (but who doesn’t love stroking tiny newborn heads??)

So according to Alpha a friend is one of three things. 1: somebody who is smaller than you therefore looks up to you and adores you. Somebody who is not threatening and can’t take your toys. 2: somebody cooler and bigger than you that you can look up to and 3: somebody who you share something with.

Which really, that about sums it up. My heart is pre-breaking for when the boys have friendships fall apart. We’ve all been there and it sucks. Especially when you were the one that got dumped. Some friendships seem so solid and then just… go away. Some seem flakey and based on nothing, but those end up being the closest ones.

The beginning of my bestie friendship was when I was 8. That was 24 years ago. We were “I hate you, I love you” for a few years and then we went skiing together. We were on a t-bar and I said “my bum’s falling off” and she said “literally?” and it was the funniest darn thing and then that was that. No more “I hate you” swings in our friendship. And over the years we’ve drifted and come back. And then last 6 years we’ve grown super close because of joint experiences. We were there for each other when the rest of the world wasn’t. And now she’s married to my favourite cousin (boo ya!! She’s family now!) and we send each other stupid messages all the time and it’s funny. Her two year old (well, 3 in a month) told her this week that she has a stick up her butt. Because she wouldn’t let her have cookies for supper. Funny. But that has nothing to do with this post. It’s nice knowing that no matter what happens in my life or how dumb I get that she will be there and will be able to make me laugh in about two and a half seconds.

I had another friend (the besties cousin actually) that I was super close to. But then my life got messy and she couldn’t deal so she bailed. By sending me a letter covered in stickers. And then she never talked to me again. It broke my heart and really really confused and upset me for a long long time. We were friends for 17 years and then *poof* not friends. And I didn’t get to talk about it with her or ask her questions or explain my messy life or anything. She just… I don’t know. Got bored. Or busy. Or something.

Other friends we just drifted apart and nobody was hurt or anything. And I still have fond memories of them and if I ever ran into them I’d be thrilled and then it would probably fade away again.

I had 2 super close friends in high school. One has drifted in and out of my life (but mostly out- moving 2 provinces away does that) and one dropped off the radar and despite several attempts on my part to get in contact with her it just hasn’t happened. The one friend recently got a hold of me, and I’m loving it. It’s this weird link to my past, and now we have all these new things in common that we have yet to explore, but I’m hoping to. Because I’ve missed her like crazy. She was one of those friends that you could stay up until 5 in the morning with laughing the whole time. About things like tuna and meatballers. Because those are funny. At least they are to 15 year old sleep-deprived girls. She’s actually the one and only person who has met me in real life that knows this blog exists. And it’s kind of strange. 15 years ago she knew everything there was to know about me. All my secrets, all my faults, all my craziness, all the crumby and good things that happened. And then she didn’t. And now she does again. And it’s kind of comforting in a weird little way.

I miss when we were kids and finding friends was less complicated. It’s hard now to find friends. Good friends. Friends that I can talk to about more than my kids. (Although I do talk a lot about them because they’re what I do all day and all night and I love them like cake.) But it’s hard to find that connection. It’s harder than “Hey, you like star wars and I like star wars, wanna play chase??” There seems to be so many rules around friendships now. Share. But not too much. Talk about your family, but not too much. Ask questions, but not too many, be invested, but the right amount of invested. Over invested and you’re going to look needy and you’ll get hurt. Under invested and you look like a jerk. Call or make contact, but not too much. Put yourself about ¾ out there. Maybe a bit less. Do mathematical equations to figure out how much to share, and when and where.

Why do adults have to make things confusing? Hey, old friend, I’m gonna put it out there. I have missed you. And I think about you lots. And every time I hear “it’s that time again…” you know what the answer is. When I see kids painting on the sidewalk I think of you. When I see a tall girl and a short girl walking together I think of you. So at risk of being over-invested and too in-need of a re-kindled friendship, I’m glad you found me and I’d like to keep this up. K? By the way, old friend, I still can't listen to Bite the Dust without hearing "I'm adopted!" Turns out Freddy Mercury WAS adopted, so maybe there's something to our theory. At least he's proud of his birth heritage.

Yay us!!

Charlie officially has weaned. Not even a nip in the last week. And shockingly, I'm not sad about it.

When Alpha was born I WAS GOING TO NURSE-THANK YOU VERY MUCH. And then I became his mom and it all went to hell in a hand basket. After his rough birth I had a rougher recovery and by the time we got home, 11 days post partum, and I tried to breast feed, he just wouldn't. We tried. A lot. For 8 weeks. Which I know doesn't sound like a lot. But oh, it is. He would cry when he got hungry, I would lift my shirt, get perfect positioning, hold him to my breast, and listen to him shriek like I was killing him. I tried and tried and tried. Then once he was purple and screaming and so hungry and I was bawling I would put my shirt back and get him the stupid bottle and give it to him, resenting the bottle that soothed him, resenting the crappy nurses I had, resenting my body. Then I would get him settled some where, pump, wash the pump parts, wash bottles, change him, and then he would cry because he was hungry and I would get a 20 minute break before doing it all again. And again. And again. So I gave up on nursing and felt like a total failure and then just cried for 6 months. Super healthy, I know. I wouldn't let anybody else feed him because I and I alone was SUPPOSED to be able to feed him. I let Matthew do it because I couldn't say no to him. And it gave me a bit of a chance to rest my poor brain. As soon as Alpha turned 1 I took the bottles away cold turkey and was so happy to not see them again.

Then Bravo was born. Oh cranky, high maintenance, difficult, sweet little Bravo. Carried in his sling for no less than 13 hours a day. He did eventually nurse but it took 17 weeks for him to figure it out. In the middle of the night he would scream for 2 hours instead of latching. But ooooh- I was determined. And I at last found the help I actually needed. My midwife sent me to the best baby chiropractor ever and to the GOOD lactation consultants in the city (we have some pretty bad ones). And finally he nursed. And I was so happy it was working. He self-weaned at 14 months because I was 11 weeks pregnant. And he was as stressed about weaning as he was about starting nursing. Even though it was his idea. Drove me nuts.

SO when Charlie came out and just latched with no effort and never looked back I was shocked. Floored. Delighted.

Which brings me to the point of this post (do I ever have a point though, really??). We nursed for 12 and a half months. I would happily keep going, but he decided he was done. Which makes me happy. I didn't force weaning, he chose it because he was ready. (And because I have no milk because I'm pregnant. Again.) And in that 12.5 months he had a small handful of bottles, like maybe 4 for a total of 10 ounces, and he had no Formula. Zero. Not even one drop. And I am so proud of us. Proud of myself. Not because formula is evil (although formula spit up in the house would make Bravo really sick) but because we did it.  I nursed with no pain, no formula, no medications, no infections, no problems, until he peacefully decided to stop. And that is an amazing feeling after everything I've gone through trying to simply feed my babies. Hopefully Delta takes after Charlie. Delta, are you listening????

So yay us!!!

Allergies. How many hours have I spent thinking of them? Hating them, trying to figure them out, trying to understand them or explain them, worrying about them, trying to figure out how to meet the needs of all family members while keeping little bravo safe? I’m not sure how many hours, but it’s got to be getting up there by now. It was 2 years and 4 months since they came onto my radar. And it’s only gotten worse.

I’m tired of thinking about them, but I just don’t have the luxury of NOT thinking of them. If I didn’t spend so much of my time on them then my baby would not be here. The fun part is figuring out cooking challenges and discovering new non-allergic ways of doing things. The crappy part is, well, everything else.

I’m now losing hope that my boy will outgrow his allergies. Some of them, sure, but not the biggie. Not Milk. And almost for sure not peanuts, but that one is SO avoidable and the masses automatically think ‘peanut” when you say “allergy”.

We got bravo’s allergy results back. He had a RAST test done. Now- this test makes no sense to me.

Radioallergosorbent test. That’s the fancy name for it.

The simple part of it is that all we do is get some blood taken. And then some fancy laboratory voo-doo takes place. They take the allergen and bind it to a solid polymer and add it to the blood. Ok- I’m following so far. In people with allergies there is something called IgE in the blood. Or- immunoglobulin E. Each allergen has a specific IgE that will bind to it. Ok- I’m still mostly following. They watch the blood and the allergen and IgE clump together, they “wash” the blood and just leave the allergen and the specific IgE so that they can do the next part. Which is where they lose me completely. I was OK up to this point, but now…..

A serum of radioactive anti-IgE, which is derived from people who are known to be allergic to the allergen being tested for, is then added, allowing technicians to determine the concentration of allergen-specific IgE in the patient's blood.

Huh? So they take my kids blood, add some milk or soy or egg or whatever to it, swish it around, watch it clump together, get rid of the parts that aren’t clumped, add some radioactive blood from some other person that IS allergic to it and then count to see how much allergen specific IgE is in my kid’s blood to determine where on the scale of allergic he is. Right. I am SO not smart enough to understand this. They may as well be dancing over the vile of blood with an engraved wooden stick. I would understand it to about the same degree. But whatever- it’s not a skin prick test and they can test for a whole bunch of allergies from one blood sample which makes getting bravo tested SO much easier.

So once this scientific voodoo takes place they come back with numbers from 0- >100. Which is then broken down into a smaller scale of 0-6. 0 being “eat all you want, there are no allergen specific IgE present” 6 being “stay the hell away this will cause instant death and a lot of pain and suffering even if you don’t die”. Or something like that. That’s my vague interpretation anyway. Actually- all it says is that 6 is more than 100 of the IgE floating around in your blood. People can have this much and not have a reaction any worse than some hives or eczema. It’s kind of an incomplete test. It needs to be paired with a history and food challenges if the numbers aren’t crazy high and maybe a skin prick test. No allergy test is really all that helpful without a reaction history.

Allergies are SO well understood.

Here’s the really helpful chart.

RAST rating	IgE level (KU/L)	comment
0	< 0.35	ABSENT OR UNDETECTABLE ALLERGEN SPECIFIC IgE
1	0.35 - 0.69	LOW LEVEL OF ALLERGEN SPECIFIC IgE
2	0.70 - 3.49	MODERATE LEVEL OF ALLERGEN SPECIFIC IgE
3	3.50 - 17.49	HIGH LEVEL OF ALLERGEN SPECIFIC IgE
4	17.50 - 49.99	VERY HIGH LEVEL OF ALLERGEN SPECIFIC IgE
5	50.0 - 100.00	VERY HIGH LEVEL OF ALLERGEN SPECIFIC IgE
6	> 100.00	EXTREMELY HIGH LEVEL OF ALLERGEN SPECIFIC IgE

You have to be at least a 3 (or an IgE of 10) for it generally to be considered life-threatening. If the IgE is under 2 (so a RAST level of mid 2 or under) they say that you’re unlikely to have a reaction and you’re good to go for trying a food challenge. For soy, typically the IgE has to be like 50 or something. I don’t remember but it was really high.

So Bravo. His old numbers were: soy- 0.6, milk- 29, egg- 29, peanuts- 8, chickpeas- not tested.

His new numbers are: soy- 1.9, milk- >100 (scary), egg- 19, peanuts- 19, chickpeas- I don’t remember but under 2.

So he has 2 #1s, 2 #4s and a 6. The 6 scares the crap out of me. That’s the one that causes him a reaction from tiny tiny amounts that we can’t see. The one that’s instant death if we don’t have 2 epi pens on us.

The other thing that can happen is a food intolerance. Allergies are immune based. Intolerances are gut-based. Too much of the food and you barf and have the trots and feel generally miserable for a few days (or however long for your particular system). Soy protein intolerance is pretty common in little guys and is virtually always outgrown by the age of 2. Bravo is 2 years and 9 months old.

So they told us that bravo wasn’t allergic enough to soy and chickpeas to be concerned and we could try some challenges. Which is when you go to the hospital allergy clinic and they give tiny amounts of soy milk (or whatever is being tried) in increasing amounts every 20 minutes or so. Good. They do it in the hospital setting so that there are emergency people there if needed. When we started Bravos challenge we were told that there was a 99% chance of there being 0 reaction. Ha!!

2 hours after Bravo’s first dose of soy (he had a total of 3 ounces spread out over 2 hours) he complained of a tummy ache. It rapidly escalated from there. He began throwing up and kept throwing up every 5-10 minutes for 4 hours. After about an hour of the throwing up he went grey and his eyes rolled back into his head and his heart rate went crazy. I picked up my boy, had him draped over my arms, and ran yelling into the hallway. They put him back on the bed and gave him epinephrine and checked his vitals every 5 minutes for the next hour. He was so tired. His little body was just exhausted. He kept falling asleep only to wake up heaving as the poison tried to escape his body. Only there was nothing left in the poor kid.

Once he was out of the really scary woods we had a chat with the allergist and this is what it boils down to for bravo. He’s special. Super duper special. He’s one of the exceptional rare kids who has BOTH a soy protein intolerance and a soy allergy. But his allergy levels are low and he’s too old for an intolerance. Neither should be an issue. So basically what happened is this: he had a reaction from the intolerance he shouldn’t have that triggered an anaphylactic reaction he shouldn’t have and the two combined to become life threatening. Our very very VERY old allergist who has been doing this for, I don’t know, about a million years, said he has seen this only once before. Fun. Isn’t it nice to be special.

The nurses and doctor there were amazing though and really kind and helpful. We’re not challenging chick peas any time soon because we’re just plain tired. And our ethnic background is just about as white as you can get (English, Irish, Scottish, and German) so it’s not like chickpeas are a big part of our diet and we’ve been avoiding them for the past 2 years. Another year or 2 will not really matter.

I’m just so discouraged right now. Until this week I really believed that he would out-grow the milk allergy by age 5. Because 95% of kids do. But it just seems so unlikely now. It’s gotten so much worse and he clearly doesn’t follow the “most kids” rules. Maybe soy will eventually be fine. Maybe chickpeas. Maybe even eggs. At least that one is going in the right direction. Never peanuts. But milk. That’s the impossible one. That’s the one that breaks my heart. Not only because it’s SO dangerous for him, but because he can’t have all these yummy kid things that are served at every party and picnic and play-place. And milk and its products are in EVEYRTHING. I had a vegan once tell me that it wasn’t a big deal. I tried so hard to not beat them in rage. They CHOSE to not eat eggs and milk. And they didn’t also have to avoid most legumes including (but so not limited to) nuts, peanuts, soy, and chickpeas. There are so many legumes we just haven’t tried out of sheer terror. He did outgrow peas, but the rest of it just scares me.

Whoops. This post was supposed to be about de-coding allergies a little bit and it became more discouraged ramblings from a very tired allergy mom. And it got long.

Taking a deep breath now.

And working on welcoming baby Delta to our crazy family.

We had our 20 week ultrasound on Friday. I had no idea just HOW worried I was about it until it was over. I’ve always heard that pregnancy after loss is hard. Harder than normal. I had a miscarriage between Alpha and bravo at 5 weeks, and it really didn’t affect me that much. I mean, I was sad, and it sucked, but I right away got pregnant with Bravo and without that miscarriage I just wouldn’t have bravo. And it really didn’t take long to get past my miscarriage point. Only a week after I found out. I was kind of on pins and needles until second trimester, but that’s pretty much every pregnant woman who has ever existed.

This time though, this time. Ugh. It’s not that I thought the same thing would happen. It was just knowing that terrible things happen to pregnancies every single day and knowing that I am not exempt from this. And getting to the 20 week ultrasound this time was terrifying because that’s when everything went pear shaped. (pear-shaped- what does that even mean, anyway??)

We got to the ultrasound and actually didn’t have to wait for an unreasonable amount of time like every single other time I’ve ever gone. Which at this point is a lot. Matthew came with me. He will never again miss another ultrasound. He was there for Alpha’s and not there for Bravos. He was only there for Charlie and Thomas’ because he hadn’t yet started the school year (it was August 26^th – a Thursday.) I don’t know how I would have gotten through that day if he wasn’t there. How do you call your husband to tell him news that your baby is dead? That one baby is in rough shape and the other, that you didn’t even know you had, was lying dead beside your living baby. I shudder just thinking of him not being there, of going by myself like I had with bravo. So now Matthew will cancel all plans and make it to every single ultrasound.

And this time? It was so nice having him there. Feeling the air come back into the room as we watched our one and only in-utero healthy baby kicking around with a healthy, beating, beautiful, 4 chambered heart. Mat held my hand and we both just fought back good tears. The tech was amazing. The biggest “struggle” was deciding if I wanted to know the gender. I did, Matthew said it was up to me, but I only wanted to know to deal with the intense curiosity. So I chose not to. The only time we DID know was when Charlie was in me. And we found out because we had to know because of whatever was going on with his cysts. So NOT knowing is kind of… celebrational for us. It’s been our healthy babies that we didn’t know. So I fought every urge I had and said I didn’t want to know. Not so bad for the toughest part of an ultrasound!!!!

The tech talked me through everything (I told her about Charlie’s 20 week scan) and pointed out every single part of the baby and at the end said ‘last time the doctor probably had to come in and then we would have rushed your results, right?” I said yes and she said “well, there is no reason at all for the doctor to come in and it will take the full 7-10 days for the results to get to your midwife”. Such wonderful words to hear. Without saying “baby looks awesome” she told me that everything is just fine.

And I feel like I can breathe. Like this heaviness that has been on my chest for the past 20 weeks has been moved. And let me tell you, breathing feels awesome. It feels kind of like I’m just finding out I’m pregnant though. I didn’t realize it, but I really hadn’t accepted this pregnancy as real, or at least as something that would result in a new baby. But now… I have no reason to think otherwise. I mean, there are still terrible things that can happen, and I know that. It’s just really nice to be past the part where I lost Thomas. Because whatever happens I got further than I did last time. I suspect, like every single other pregnant woman, I won’t rest easy until this baby is in my arms nursing. Because that’s what mom’s do is worry.

It’s just nice to feel positive. I haven’t felt like this in a very long time.

So, baby Delta, Welcome to our family. I can’t wait to meet you and see who you are and look into your beautiful eyes and kiss your beautiful wrinkly little alien-head. Be who you’re going to be, and I’ll see you in a few months. Love, Mommy.