Blood and Nuts

I've mentioned in past posts the issues that we've had since Spencer's infancy with mulitple food allergies. The poor kid, who loves to eat, has no idea what he is missing out on. Not being able to have any milk, egg, wheat, or nuts in any form is a bit restrictive at times. We've managed over the last 3 1/2 years to get creative and to find things to feed our poor child and we are doing fairly well. Still, we long for a day when we can let him eat a candy bar or some French toast or even the sacrament at church. A couple of weeks ago, I was shopping in the specialty food store where I am forced to spend three times as much on Spencer's groceries as I do for the rest of the family, when I saw an allergy-free pizza mix and some soy mozzarella cheese that claimed to actually melt. I was so excited! We made pizzas that night; one for us and a special one for Spencer. He was thrilled too and had so much fun helping put toppings on. It came out of the oven looking fantastic. We sat down to eat and Spencer eagerly took a bite. He said in a not-quite-as-enthusiastic a voice as I'd hoped for: "Mmm...I like it." After a few more bites, he took back what he'd said: "Actually, I don't like it very much." He managed to eat his olives and mushrooms off the top and ate the crust before he gave up and announced that he would not be eating pizza again. Another $15 experiment down the drain...

Anyway, every year Spencer has to have a test in which they seem to siphon out an inordinate amount of blood from his little body so that they can re-test him to see if he happens to be outgrowing any of his allergies.

This year, Spencer was determined to be super brave and not cry during the procedure. He was actually really interested as they got everything set up. He started to tense up a bit when he saw the four empty vials that would soon be filled with his blood and he told me "I think my blood wants to stay in my body." He gritted his teeth when they tied the elastic around his arm, said "Ouch!" when he felt the first stick of the needle, and then he proceeded to sob as quietly as possible through the eternal minutes of the actual blood draw. It was so heartbreaking. When it was over and I told him he'd been so brave, he completely broke down and yelled: "No I wasn't! I cried anyway!" Poor kid. The nurse gave him three stickers instead of two and of course, I took him to get a treat afterward and let him get two instead of one. He did enjoy being the center of his sibling's attention when he got home and showed them his battle wound.

Here he is showing off his cool camouflage bandaid that matched his cool camouflage crocs.

So, Monday we had his big appointment to find out whether he's improving or not. It seems that he is definitely headed toward growing out of his egg allergy! Last year he had gone from numbers in the thirties (which is very high) to a 17. This year he is down to a 6. The doctor says if he is down below 3 next year, we'll actually do a food tolerance test where we let him eat egg and see how he responds. That is pretty exciting. Unfortunately, his other food allergies aren't progressing as well. His allergy to peanuts has leveled off and most likely won't change. His milk also only dropped a few points and is still at a 38. And his wheat came down ten points but is still a high 40. The allergist is always quick to assure us that there is still hope that he'll outgrow some of them but also has told us that the reality is that if things aren't going down by age 6 or 7, we can pretty much assume that these will be lifetime allergies. Which I'm sure we can deal with but I worry a lot about how other people will deal with them. I have to send Spencer off to school next month where I can't monitor everything that he puts into his mouth. There are so many misconceptions about food allergies that even people with good intentions can give him something bad. For example, some friends of ours who knew all about his allergies, once offered him a graham cracker. I explained he couldn't have it because of the wheat in it. "Oh, she said. Well let me get him a saltine intead." I explained that saltines also contain wheat. She said: "but they're made with white flour." It was news to her that white flour is wheat flour. And it's been news to many people we've encountered. So I worry. And I hope that someday he'll grow out of them. Or at least improve enough that eating an offending food won't threaten his life! I guess we'll just keep at it and see what next year brings...