Eggs!

This Easter (actually, the Saturday before when we were dying eggs) we let Chris try an egg. We'd been letting him have things with eggs baked in, but we hadn't been brave enough to try egg by itself. He ate the whole thing and had no reaction. After a few more tries we were pretty convinced he's over the allergy.

Since then we've re-introduced eggs into our regular breakfasts. Chris is still tentative (since he was fully aware that he couldn't eat them before). Given a choice he'll opt for the non egg breakfast, but his curiosity usually gets the best of him and he almost always tries the eggs.

Alex, meanwhile, is loving it. This morning, he had three hard boiled eggs for breakfast. Yesterday he had two scrambled eggs. We may have to get our own hens soon...

Back in the E.R.

Back in the E.R.
Originally uploaded by mandy&john

Last night was Alex's turn to visit the MIlford ER.

Alex developed a lovely rash yesterday in time for his six-month doctor's visit. The doc said that it looked like hives and was more likely food related than the dog. We switched his formula to an organic brand a few weeks back when the melamine story broke. That is now the most likely culprit for his current discomfort. The doctor put Alex on a hypoallergenic formula and he was up all night screaming, so we took him to the ER around 3.

It's still not clear what it is that's setting him off, but it's likely not the dog. We'll let her stay where she is until we figure this thing out, but it looks like we'll get to bring here back home. I'm not glad Alex has a food allergy like his brother, and I wasn't pleased to be in the ER at 4am. But if we can find one or two more things to cut out of our diet in order to make him happy and let Joey come home, then I'm OK with that.

Noggin'

nog 2
Originally uploaded by mandy&john

We had a nice (though, sadly ) evening tonight of sitting around the (plastic...Nona can't do pine) Christmas tree singing carols and drinking (soy...no eggs for Chris) nog. Despite all the absences and substitutes, it was lots of fun. Chris is obsessed with Frosty and made us sing it about 6 or 7 times. I'm also a pretty big fan of the snog.

Jo(e)yless

Back before Chris was born, we worried that he might be allergic to the dog. We sort of joked that if it happened that way, we'd have to find someone to take the baby. It never crossed our minds with Alex, yet it seems that he is allergic to her.

When he was about 2 months he was coughing non stop for a few weeks and was eventually diagnosed with bronchiolitis and a touch of pneumonia. With some antibiotics he was able to breathe much better, but the cough never completely went away. He hasn't gone more than a day or two without coughing since. Supposedly it takes awhile for bronchiolitis to fully clear out, but this seems excessive.

A couple weeks ago, we noticed that he had a huge coughing fit in a house with a cat, and we started putting things together. It happened again last week in a different house, also with a cat. He is definitely allergic to cats.

We don't know 100% if he is allergic to Joey as well, but there is a fair amount to suggest that he is. We've been trying to keep the house extra clean, but it you know either of us, that's not going to be good enough. To make matters worse, it's been really cold lately, so we haven't been able to open up the house at all. On top of all that, at six months, he need to be on the ground all the time now to learn how to move himself around. We can't leave him on the rugs, or he starts coughing, and the floors are frigid.

So we've made the difficult decision to get Joey out of the house for awhile. Fortunately, she is a wonderful dog and there are many friends and family who would take her in, including Nonna who's just minutes away. The plan is to give it a month or two to see if Alex improves as the house clears of Joey dander. His reaction doesn't seem to be very severe, so we are optimistic, that given a chance to recover first, he'll be able to tolerate her eventually.

In the meantime we plan to visit her an take her for walks and hikes frequently. I'm not sure if I'm more depressed that we had to banish her or that she'll be taken care of better at her new home. Not to say we're bad parents to her, but she's dropped down the priority list an awful lot in the last two years, and she is going to get spoiled rotten for the next little bit.

I think Chris is still too young too really get it, but he knows where she is ("Nonna's house") and doesn't seem too upset about it. He also had a miniature broom and dust pan yesterday to help us clean up the Joey fur.

We are pretty upset and crossing or fingers that she'll be back with us soon. Hopefully she'll enjoy herself at Nonna's. We miss her already and it's been 1 day.

A-B-P-nut

A-B-P-nut.JPG
Originally uploaded by mandy&john

This weekend, after a morning at the Boston Children's Museum, we gathered for lunch at the attached Au Bon Pain with the Portland cousins and Nicole and her family. Mandy and Chris split the Mediterranean Wrap as they did the last time we had lunch there. It's hard to go wrong, as far as Chris is concerned, with hummus.

When she split it in half, Mandy asked me what I thought the dark sauce was. I figured it was just the sun-dried tomato salsa and brushed off the question. A little way into lunch, Chris starts coughing a little. We assumed it was nothing at first, but it just got worse and he was reaching into his mouth.

Afraid he was going to vomit, I rushed him to the bathroom where I realized he was breaking out in hives around his mouth and starting to rub his eyes. I washed his face and hands as best I could and he seemed to be more comfortable pretty quickly.

When we got back to the table, he asked for more of his lunch. Given that he was reacting to something, we gave him some benadryl. It was apparent that his eye was starting to swell up. Mandy took him this time to clean up some more and get some fresh air.

While they were gone I was nervously nibbling on the remaining food at the table including their wrap. I immediately figured out that I was wrong about the dark sauce. It was clearly peanut flavored. Apparently, someone behind the counter didn't bother to read the sauces or thought the Thai peanut sauce would compliment feta and hummus nicely.

The manager was only moderately apologetic and offered to make us the proper wrap or get us something else. We went with the banana he's eating in he picture. After saying something about how similar the sauces look in the squeeze bottles, the manager refunded the cost of the wrap, but not without subtracting the banana first. Apparently, he was offering to sell, not give, us something else.

Although this manager was not too concerned to see one of his young patrons getting puffy around the eyes, the company responded a bit better. We sent them an email that night and got a call form the regional VP on Sunday morning.

Chris seems fine now and there's no real harm done, I'm just upset that Chris might have to deal with being allergic to lots of things. I've been telling myself that he's just going to outgrow the egg thing. Now I'm not so sure. I'm picking up an epi pen from the pharmacy on the way home from work.

At the Milford Hospital

Christopher had scrambled eggs this morning and they didn’t agree with his face. Apparently he is allergic, but the only reaction was where he rubbed it into his face. The egg he swallowed seems to have caused no problems so far.

Long story short…we panicked and took him to the ER, but nothing came of it all. No more eggs for Chris.