We have turned the corner

Just wanted to post an update about my little guy. It is so hard to talk about it, when you are right in the middle of it. So sorry, I have not told you how things have been going.

I just looked back to see where I left off, oh boy, way to long to keep you hanging.

Friday evening, the life care place called and said they would not be able to deliver the breathing machine until morning. I just about started to cry. I knew my little guy would not make it through the night. I knew we would end up in the ER. This is the last place I wanted to go on a Friday night. Of course I would do anything for my little guy, but if we don't have too.

He cried all day long. Really, I am not exaggerating, not even a little. He was miserable, and so was mom. All my daughter kept saying, who is three by the way, is poor brother. I secretly thought, poor brother, what about mom.

Enough pouting, and I was told they would deliver the machine by 7:00. I didn't really pout, I had a few stern words, and a little pleading.

The breathing treatment helped. He was still pretty miserable, at least his airway didn't sound so scary. He still cried most of the night. He seemed to be so jittery. I think all the medications, not feeling well, and not being able to rest, really got to him.

I know it got to me. Finally, I did something I really never do. I laid him down in my bed. I always fear they will not ever want to sleep in there own bed again. At this point I did not care. I really needed some sleep. Two full nights of zero sleep, was not going to be an option. It worked, he fell fast asleep, and finally I could rest.

The breathing treatments worked, little man does not like them. It is nice to have the option to help him out at home. The rest of the weekend we only needed to use the new medication they gave us, and he started to do much better.

He is not completely better yet, however, we are on the way to a full recovery. Right now, he sounds like he has a simple cold. His airway is clear, and he just has a yucky runny nose, and a cough that is not making him struggle too much.

This is the season for sickness, and I just pray that the viruses know they are not welcome in the Nut Free Living home.

Peanut Free Snack.

My little guy has been a bit goofy lately. It seems that he likes to paint, paint his own face that is.



He also likes to put mommy's glasses on, and say cheese for a picture.



I love my little two year old, peanut allergy and all. I feel so blessed, these sweet moments captured, help me remember that.

Our New Preschool.

My daughter, who does not have food allergies, started preschool this week. My son, who is PA/TNA, thought he was going to attend with her. Notice his backpack in hand.

I know so many families have problems when it comes to schools and their children's allergies.

I just wanted to share our journey, and the positive outcome it has had.

Knowing that Zach would attend preschool, the year following his sister, it was very important for me to find one that had a good allergy plan.

I searched, and now know, that I could not have found a better school.

Last week at parent orientation the director stressed, the no peanut policy, for everything. Birthdays, lunches, snacks etc....

I was rather pleased at that point, however, I did notice a ton of parents talking through that portion, and become a little worried that they were missing it.

Today, I found a new level of comfort with the school.

As parents, we needed to provide emergency earthquake bags. Parents were bringing in their bags, and they were checked by the teachers. Anything that contained peanuts or said "processed in a facility with peanuts" were turned away.

My daughters teacher was explaining, so well, the severity of the allergy. I listened to a couple of parents say "I can't find any snacks that do not say may contain nuts, what am I to do?" I so wanted to say, "welcome to my world." I just listened, and when the teacher looked at me and said, " this is so serious, I hope you all understand." I promptly said, "I know, my son has the allergy."

It was at that point, I was able to help the mom's with snack ideas. I was just so relieved that the school was taking it so serious.

The teacher thanked me for responding, and proceeded to tell me all about the in service they had, about the allergy, and the use of epi-pens.

It is so nice to see, that some people are, getting this issue.

I feel safe knowing, that my daughter will not come home from school having any peanut residue on her. I also feel, even better knowing, that next year, my son will go to a safe preschool.

Talk about a hugh relief. Hopefully, within the next two years, this will spill into our local elementary school.

The Birthday Boy.

I am back. I am so sorry for the delay. We had a very busy few days, leading up to a very busy weekend. We also had a fun start to this brand new week.

If you want to read all about my daughters first day of preschool click here. On a side note, she is going to a completely peanut free preschool. I will talk about that here in a later post.

My big dilemma for the birthday boy, was the cake. As I shared before, I loved a bakery bought cake. They are so cute, and you do not have to usually worry about how they will taste. As most of you PA moms know, that option is a thing of the past.

I set out on a mission, to make, and decorate, my own cake. I was very apprehensive. I am not that creative, and decorating, sometimes just does not work for me. Overall, I was pleased with the result. Most of my family thought that I had bought the cake.



The most important thing was, the Birthday Boy loved it. He is really into trains right now, and just loved, that he had a Thomas cake. (the Thomas on the cake was a toy)

We had a weekend of celebrating. Friday evening we had family over to our house. That is the safest place for me. I can control the food, and I really do not have to worry much about Zach's safety.

Mom, Dad, and Birthday Boy having a great time.

Zach, on his new tractor.

Saturday, we headed up to my mom's house, for a second celebration. It is a little harder to be away from home, however, I really feel my mom gets it, and we feel safe there. I brought some cupcakes up for our little celebration.

Zach giving a thumbs up to his new basket ball set.

Overall, we had a very nice birthday weekend. My little birthday boy had so much fun, and most importantly he was kept safe.

I really did have fun making his cake, so much so, that I would like to take a decorating class. I guess, I got the fever.

So many things that you think may be an inconvenience, due to this allergy, really do turn out to be blessings.

Now, my little one is two, and my big one is at preschool. They grow up so fast. For today, I am just enjoying the moment.

It really is Labor Day.

Two years ago today, we celebrated Labor Day, by me being in Labor with Zach. It truly was a "Labor Day".



Now, my allergy boy is turning two this week. His allergies, bring a whole new dimension, to the birthday party planning.

I love having parties, I especially love celebrating the kids birthday's with friends and family. What I usually love to do is buy a beautiful bakery cake. That is not part of the plan this year.

I have no problems baking a cake, in fact I have a few yummy recipes. My problem, is the frosting, and the decorating of the cake. I can make a great butter cream frosting, however it never quite looks that great (to me anyway) when I top the cake.

Not to mention, it is his 2nd birthday, and he is partial to a certain character. I am not very artistic at all. In my mind, I think I can do it, and then it just does not come out the way I had envisioned.

For the safety of my son, I am going to attempt it anyway. He really wants a choo choo cake. I have a great idea. I can't wait to see how it comes out. I am going to practice with the frosting in the next couple of days. I really do not want to get stuck Friday, with everyone coming over and not have a cake to sing Happy Birthday with.

I will keep you posted, and I pray, I will have pictures nice enough, to want to share.

How it all happened.

Not sure when, or where, I remember the very first sign of problem. One thing I will say, anything I write in this blog, is simply my interpretation of our situation. I am by no means an expert, or authority, on any allergies. I just know what has happened to us, what we have been told, and how we handle our daily living.

Hindsight is twenty twenty, they say. Looking back, I can tell you all the signs I missed, and of course, all the things I should have, or shouldn't have done.

Truth be told, I am really bad about second guessing myself. All that aside, I refuse to play the blame game on myself.

Zach was born a little early, after a horrible pregnancy. I read, not to long ago, about a study done on stressful pregnancies and allergies. Who knows???

Everything that could go wrong, went wrong, every test that could come back bad, came back bad. Tons of outside emotional stress, and a long stay in the hospital on bed rest, when I had sixteen month old at home. Even when I got home, I remained on bed rest, until a week before he was born.

He came into the world looking perfect, doesn't every mother think that? He was though, everything was fine. He looked good, took to nursing right away, and slept better than my first baby right off the bat.

A couple weeks later, he got, what the doctor called, eczema. He also had the cradle cap real bad. Nothing took the rash away. We finally got a prescription cream that kept it at bay. This rash lasted a very long time, it also came up in different places. Not once did anyone suggest it was something I could be eating.

When Zach started solids, he often would get rashy around his mouth. He also always had a rash on his bottom. Not where typical diaper rash was, this was high up on the back of his bottom, the cheeks.... When his diaper was off, he would just scratch and scratch.

I did not know this until recently, not sure it would have changed things for me, however.....
I was told, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends you wait until your child is three before introducing peanut products. Do you know how many kids under three I know that eat peanut butter...

I also was told, after the fact, that a child that develops eczema early, is more prone to allergies. Again, I say, why did I find out these things from my doctor after the fact. Would I have waited to introduce peanuts given that information.

We will never know. At thirteen months Zach had a tiny bite of a peanut butter cup, it was Halloweeen, he was fine. A couple months after that, I gave him a quarter of a peanut butter sandwich with his lunch. He LOVED it.

After lunch I went to nurse him for nap. I looked down and he had a welt on his cheek, I watched him, within minutes his face was covered. By the time we got to the doctor he had welts from the top of his head to his stomach.

He was given a shot and an at home course of steroids for a week. We were also instructed not to give him peanut products and see our regular physician.

Now, even though we did not have the official diagnosis, I was devastated. I knew enough about a peanut allergy to know this was horrible news. This was something that could kill my son.

This is where it got sticky for me. Our physician said," looks like he might be allergic, don't let him have any." I thought, that is not good enough, shouldn't we know for sure? He said, "well, if you want we can do a blood test." Of course I want to know.

A few days later he calls and said we need to discuss Zach's allergies. That was plural. He went on to say that Zach did in fact have an allergy to peanuts and it was life threatening. He was also allergic to Almonds, cashews, filberts, walnuts etc... etc... There was not a nut he was not allergic to at a high level. He had fours and fives on most nuts on his RAST. Even nutmeg. He also had some level one's on a few things, wheat, clams and lemons. All I kept thinking was, and you did not even want to test him. What if I had given him almond butter instead.

We went into the office to get our referral to the allergist and our epi-pens. The rest is history. It is daily living with this scary allergy. Not sure if I am even incredibly happy with our allergist at this point.

One thing I do know, that Zach's rashes cleared up after we eliminated from his diet, anything and everything that said may contain nuts, processed in a facility with nuts and anything that had any nut in it. Amazing. There were so many things we ate that had trace amounts of nuts in them.

We have a totally nut free home for the safety of my child. There are so many situations, that come up on a daily basis, you deal with when you have a child with life threatening allergies. Reading other blogs, connecting to other families in similar situation, and now blogging myself, have all been a tremendous help.

This is how we found out the single thing that has changed our life forever. I look forward to sharing more of our journey as we march along.