this past tuesday afternoon I made scrambled eggs for kate. it was the weirdest feeling. I am not sure if it was because i have not cooked or eaten eggs in often since discovering Kate's allergy or because I knew they were for kate.
The dr had directed me to make eggs in a form i thought my child would eat and not to add anything to them, so scrambled eggs it is. I even had to get brad to pick up a carton of eggs on the way home...20 minutes before we had to leave for our dr appointment. We always buy eggs but never manage to use them before they go bad. Seemed equally as weird to go grocery shopping and not buy eggs so we always do.
it was the fateful day. the day of the the food challenge.
About five months ago we switch to a new allergist who requested that we do blood-work to confirm our allergy since it had been two years since Kate began reacting to eggs. It would give us a good idea of whether anything had changed and a starting point for the new doctor. So we went and had kate's blood drawn... which you can read about here.
to our surprise her blood-work showed no allergic reaction. we were happy but conflicted. the next step would be to have Kate do the Food Challenge which required Kate to little by little touch, taste and swallow eggs while in the dr office. i struggled with this because up until this point kate's only knowledge was that "eggs made her sick." she had become great about asking what was in her food and not wanting things with eggs. this would rock her world. I was not ready to confuse her.
How do you tell your three year old to ignore what you have told her and just eat the eggs. the eggs that should make her sick. Kate already questions me and keeps tabs on whether I follow through with things I said. this was a bit bigger. it could be traumatic if she did have a reaction. And although i really didn't expect it I had to acknowledge that that was a real risk. What if she is no longer allergic and is she able to understand that we did tell her the truth but the truth changed..
Those were only the first thought - there were more "what ifs" but in the end i wasn't ready to risk trust issues with a child too young to reason with. I thought i would wait just little longer. After hearing me discuss things with family and friends as well as talking about her allergy for several months, I saw that Kate was ready for the Food Challenge. Or at least with the concept. She was actually asking me when we could got to the dr office and try it out. So I made an appointment.
Brad showed kate the Wheres Waldo book which we found out Kate is a WHIZ at. She did great until they wanted to do a skin test before we got started. I hadn't prepared kate for this and she didn't like the whole poking her hard on the back ... where she couldn't see. ( i think the fact hat she couldn't see it bothered her the most.) they had an EGG, FLU, NEG control, POS control. The Flu and the NEG control looked the same - no reaction just tiny little dot from the poke. The positive had a red splotch and a welt. Honestly there were two welts because by the fourth poke Kate was not thrilled and jerked, which brought on an accidental fifth poke. oops. The Egg poke was splotchy but had no welt. I agreed with the dr that this was good but it was still red and did not look like the NEG control. I think I would have been fine but the Dr kept having to come back and look again and again, feeling for a welt. In the end he said he wanted to say it was negative because there was no welt and he expected it to be 2x the size of the POS control, like in other kids. He also called Kate a "tricky case."
So we move forward. First, put a tiny piece of egg in the mouth and spit it out. Kate gags horribly. Wait 15 minutes. Next take a similar tiny piece and chew and spit. Kate gags so bad the Dr himself jumps up and grabs the trash can. I of course am aware of Kate's overly sensitive gag reflex and is trying to get her to put it back in her mouth. Dr. wont have it though, he is so shaken up by her "intense response" that he say we can't go forward. Kate is now refusing to eat the eggs aways, saying she doesn't like them. In my head small voice is saying, "it doesn't even matter if you likethem, only that they don't kill you."
Dr goes into a long dialog about how kids don't like things and later they find out that the reason they don't like them is their allergy ...and how they couldn't articulate it as a child...blah,blah, blah. I am tuning him out because I myself have used that argument but I know my child. Kate can gag on air. every time the Dr. leaves the room we try convincing Kate to to try it one more time...every time the Dr re-enters he is shaking his head and mumbling about her "extreme reaction."
Bottom line, Food challenge is inconclusive. We have to come back another time with breakfast tacos and egg Mc Muffins, something we think Kate will eat. this is what I was told not to do but I just politely nod my head. The flu shot on the other hand was a ok so we closeup this "inconclusive" visit by stick a needle in the poor child. I can be pretty good about closing off my emotions and doing the best for Kate but it was harder this time. She was begging the nurse to not give her the shot. She was so darn articulate. "Please Dr, don't give me a shot. Please Dr Please Dr i don't like it. Please don't." she told the nurse. It was heartbreaking to wrap my arms around her body and my legs around her legs to hold her still.
thankfully she recovered quickly from the trauma and proudly pulled down her leggings in front of EVERYONE at school to show them her circular band aid on her thigh.
I didn't recover so quickly. After bracing myself and prepping Kate and thinking through all the possibles... I was disappointed and frustrated. Here this little girl had been poked, scratched, given itchy allergens, gagged repeatedly, and then held down for a shot - and i was the one grumpy.
One the way to the car Kate was skipping one rocks and holding her dads hand. She looks up and says, "why are you grumpy mom?" I responded, "Inconclusive."
