Storm Central...Part 2

Tornado warnings, thunderstorms, heavy rains, high winds, flash flooding...will it ever end? The ground is so saturated right now that there is no where for the water to go anymore. I'm afraid to even listen to the news to find out what is in store for us next.

This was the view of our front yard yesterday afternoon. I'm standing above a culvert that will normally create a small stream that runs along the side of our property when we get a lot of rain. Yesterday we had a foot of water surrounding our entire house.




This picture is looking out over our driveway towards our neighbors where the water is making its way down to the lake.



Need I even say that our basement is flooded? We will be spending the day ripping out all of our carpeting and salvaging everything else we can.

The Results Are In...

I don’t know why I let myself get my hopes up every year when Brody has his annual allergy testing completed. In my heart I know he won’t be one of the lucky kids who outgrows any of his food allergies (although I’m still holding out for egg someday!) and the fact of the matter is that these will most definitely be life-long allergies for him.

The results from this year are as follows:
Milk – Class VI (this is as high as the test goes)
Egg – Class III
Peanut – Class V
Tree Nuts – Range from Class III-IV
Shellfish – Not tested this year, but last year ranged from Class II-III

Keep in mind though that the numbers really don’t mean much of anything in the sense that even an individual who is a Class I to a food can still be severely allergic and even anaphylactic to that allergen. Although the higher numbers definitely do indicate a very severe allergy. Once again I am reminded of Brody’s anaphylactic reaction to an accidental milk exposure a few years ago. Basically the numbers are just telling us that yes, Brody is still a very allergic kiddo.

There is one silver lining to this cloud though. Brody tends to test very low-positive to Almond. (I’ve actually read that Almond seems to cause the least problems of all common tree nuts.) The allergist suggested that perhaps we could consider an In Office Food Challenge (IOFC) if we felt comfortable with that idea. An IOFC consists of feeding the patient very small amounts of the allergen in increasing increments over a several hour time span in the hospital so the doctor can monitor any possible allergic reactions and take action immediately if need be. I can’t say I feel “comfortable”, but it certainly would be nice to have another source of protein and good fats for my little guy. The problem with this is that most all tree nuts are cross-contaminated with peanuts and other tree nuts in the facilities where they are packaged. So unless I can find a company that only handles almonds or perhaps grow my own almond tree, then I’m not quite sure how this IOFC would be possible. Does anyone have an almond tree or know of someone who does?? I’ll be talking with the allergist in a week or two so we can discuss the possibility of further testing in greater detail.

Storm Central

Strong winds and heavy rains swept through Pardeeville/Wyocena yesterday afternoon. Quite a few uprooted trees and flooded yards everywhere. The wind took down a huge spruce tree in my parent's yard, landing it onto their house which in turn knocked down a TV antenna tower.

Pictures from Africa

Shane is finally back from Africa! He had a wonderful time, but is glad to be back with his family. Here are a few of his pictures. Enjoy!!

Food Allergy News for Kids

Brody made the front page of a newsletter that is sent out to kids with food allergies from the Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network!

A Trip To Urgent Care

Yesterday Josh's headache returned with a vengeance. He said it started during school at about 1:00 and it got so bad last night that he was crying and asking me over and over why God hates him so much to give him these headaches all the time and also said that it hurt so much he wished he could kill himself. Brody was freaked out by the way Josh was acting and kept telling me he didn't want Josh to die. I finally got the boys in the SUV and took Josh to Urgent Care because nothing I could do was helping him. They hooked him up to an IV and gave him Toradol, Benedryl, and Reglan which finally gave him relief after 8 straight hours of migraine pain. I was hoping the doctor could give us a prescription for something stronger than Tylenol or Ibuprofen, but he said none of the migraine medications are approved for children and we will need to probably go back and start seeing the pediatric neurologist again. Thank goodness he's feeling much better today!

On another note, the homemade orange sorbet was a bust. I personally think it's yummy, but Brody says it's "too orangey"! =P

Some days just suck!

Yesterday was one of those days. I suppose part of it could be due to the fact that Shane is still in Africa and the boys and I are missing him terribly. Josh told me yesterday that "dad will be home in exactly 92 hours". I guess that means we're down to about 77 hours now...not that I'm keeping track or anything!

What really made yesterday sour though was a domino effect of events that ended in lots of tears between Brody and myself. Brody had an appointment with his allergist to have his annual allergy testing done which requires a blood draw. Of course Brody was not looking forward to this at all. When I stopped at school to pick Brody up for his appointment, my older son, Josh, was lying in the nurse's office with a migraine. Another fun thing we deal with on a regular basis. Since I was heading to Madison with Brody, I decided I needed to sign Josh out of school and drop him at his Grandma's house because there was no way his headache was going to go away by lying in the nurse's office all day. Okay, great, got that all taken care of and dropped a completely miserable Josh off at Grandma's so he could sleep off his migraine.

Then of course on the way to the UW Hospital there was road construction and detours. Lovely. But we somehow managed to make it to Brody's appointment with 2 minutes to spare! Since the UW Hospital is a teaching hospital, our appointments always last at least 1 1/2-2 hours because the students assisting the doctor are extremely ssslllooowww. Once we finally were done with the actual appointment, we were sent down to the lab to have blood drawn. Now Brody has been doing this every year for his entire life. He is very aware of the fact that some of the lab technicians are awesome at drawing blood and some are, shall we say, torturous? Can you guess which category our lab tech fell into yesterday? Brody was a trooper though and he and I looked into each other's eyes and started slowly counting to try to keep his mind off of the needle. With a good lab tech, we only manage to count to about 10-15. Yesterday, with tears in Brody's eyes, we almost counted to 100. Why, you may ask? Well, according to lab tech guy, Brody's vein kept "moving" so he had to keep jabbing the needle in even deeper and then he would take it out and start all over again. Torture.

After the hospital incident was over, I had promised Brody we could run into Whole Foods Market to see if they had any of his favorite Orange Sorbet so we could stock up our freezer with it. The store was out of it last time we were there, so I was hoping they had restocked. As we stood there in the freezer section, I realized that they weren't just out of that flavor, they had discontinued it completely. And that, my friend, was just simply more than little Brody could handle for the day. As we walked out of the store empty-handed, Brody broke down and started crying. I picked him up and we held onto each other and cried into each other's shoulders...partly because it had been a long, hard day, partly because we miss daddy being here to help make things better, and in large part because there are so few store-bought "treats" that Brody can eat, that when something he absolutely loves is discontinued, it really sets off a tidalwave of emotions ranging from sad to hurt to downright ticked off!

So right now I'm in the process of making homemade orange sorbet to surprise Brody with after school. While I'm sure it will be very tasty and he'll enjoy it, it's certainly not the same as all the other kids who get to just go out and buy an ice cream cone, or a sundae, or a shake, or....you get the picture. But we'll make due and hopefully today will be a better day.