Sunday, September 14, 2008

Sigh...Back to Square One

Last week Brian took Kiersta in for her "oral challenge" to see if she was still allergic to peanuts. Unfortunately she is.  The doctor started with a peanut butter rub on her lip. Everything was going well and the next phase, "chew a peanut and then spit it out" was about to begin.  However, right then Brian noticed that Kiersta had hives.  The rest of the testing was cancelled and we are back to square one.  We have to wait two more years before we have her tested again.  Two more years of label reading, two more years of worrying, two more years of not eating Chinese food, two more years of...well, the same.

When Brian called me and gave me the news, I was so sad.  I had been so hopeful and felt that there was no way she could still be allergic, but I was wrong.  Apparently this had been the second time in a week that there had been a negative scratch test result and then a positive result from the oral challenge.  The doctors are looking into the possibility of a bad batch of peanut scratch testers.  I just want for Kiersta to be "normal."  I don't want her to start elementary school next year where food is unrestricted and kids share.  She may just have to go to my school so that I can be there to keep an eye on things.  Kiersta is disappointed too.

Here's one sad girl (age 17 months)



4 comments:

  1. Aww, that sucks!! I'm sorry you guys got your hopes up for no reason :(. But she can't live in a bubble, either. It might be better for her to go to your school next year for logistical reasons, but you probably shouldn't do it just for lunch-time concerns :). You might consider educating her would-be school (and her, even more!!!) about the dangers of peanut allergies. One of our kids' school has "peanut-free zones" in the cafeteria where all of the kids with that allergy sat, for obvious reasons. And no unlabeled treats of any kind were allowed in the classrooms for parties, etc for that reason, too. At another school our kids went to, there was a blanket policy that no peanut products were allowed in ANYONE'S lunches, period, due to the commonality of the allergy. It was shocking. Now I'm sure non-allergic kids' parents weren't reading labels (we didn't) and stuck to not sending overt things like peanut butter and raw nuts, but that went a long way! And Kiersta will be old enough and will have lived this "lifestyle" long enough to understand that she CANNOT share food (either EVER without your supervision or anything that might be peanut-related). Until Ashton's allergy was cleared, even younger than Kiersta, he would rather be caught dead (no pun intended) than touch anything with the slightest possibility of peanuts in it, even if it looked and smelled heavenly :). So I understand you wanting her to be normal, but who of us is normal anyway :). Just relax a bit and know that it is much more normal than you may think (which is not to say it isn't a pain in the butt).

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  2. Aw. I'm so sorry. :(

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  3. uh, that anonymous is me - Philly. HAHA.

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  4. Oh, bummer. I'm sorry to hear that! Peanut allergies are rotten. Seems like all the schools over this way are pretty strict about keeping peanuts (our elementary school bans all nuts) out of the school. I hope they're pretty successful, but gosh, you just never know, do you? At least it's common enough that I don't think the other kids will think Keirsta's wildly different, but hopefully they'll know enough not to foist their food on her!

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