Let there be WHEAT!!

Well, today was the long-awaited allergist appointment!

We didn't tell Bethany where we were going - she is so freaked out about needle pokes now, and she has been adamant that there were no more doctor appointments on the calendar. So we went to her preschool to do school photos, and then tried to sneak our way downtown to the allergist's office. She did start to ask in the car and we were honest with her, and she just cried and insisted that she was all done with doctor's visits because she went THREE times already and there were only TWO on her calendar! We were able to tell her we were mostly just going to ask questions about what she could eat, and we would ask when we got there if she was going to get pokes...that definitely calmed her down. I'm amazed at how much more she is able to grasp things now - she used to seem so confused by a simple conversation like that.

I saw a 6-month old baby in the waiting room. Poor parents, I should have said hello but was too chicken.

Bethany did great, she was a champ through the whole thing. She was a bit emotional when the nurse brought in the materials for the testing, and Bethany was frantic trying to get her attention: "Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me...um...doctor?? Doctor? I have to ask you something!" She just wanted to make sure she was going to get a band-aid afterward! Bless her heart! This is amazing to me...a couple of months ago and she would have just been whining and wailing (and yes, she got THREE band-aids!).

The good news: we get to reintroduce the foods that she tested super-low for, starting with wheat! WOOHOO! My mind just started reeling with all of the foods I could give her again: chicken nuggets, fish sticks, GOOD bread, noodles, cereals, etc. etc. You probably have no clue how much wheat is in your diet until you try to cut it out.

The bad news: she tested positive - strongly - for all of the seeds we tested. So all seeds and members of the seed family (mustard) are out. But...after hearing I can get wheat back, I can handle seeds!

So the idea is to slowly give her wheat in her diet and wait a couple of weeks to see if we see any behavior changes or reverting back to who she was a couple of months ago. Which can be tricky because if she's having a bad day we'll now wonder, "Is she having a bad day or is it because we fed her wheat?" The mental process of all of this can be exhausting in and of itself. If we see no response, we can try another food she tested low for, probably peanuts next. The allergist wants us to start with the "big" allergen foods first to get them back in her diet if we can.

And my allergist is great. She is like a dream doctor. She sits in there and answers all your questions, chats about things, she is GREAT with kiddos, etc. etc. I love it when I can find a great doctor! She even joked as we left, "Thanks for staying the whole day with me!" It was only an hour and a half, but in the medical world that is a HUGE amount of time for one patient!

Bethany had fishsticks for lunch. :-)