Style-ish

It seems that they’re both searching for their own style at the moment.  I’m going to ignore that (short lived?) style in favour of the fact that they’re both looking at books.  That’s got to be a good thing surely.

Rockin’

The cheapest toys seem to be the ones they play with the most.  I am slightly concerned that the girl is going to lob herself off the front (or back) of her rocker.  Still, we haven’t been to casualty with her for a while now.

It’s Not Fair

No matter how hard I try, I’m not treating my children equally at the moment.

The girl has been fairly ill-tempered over the last few days, with very good reason.  Her mother is not acting as usual, she’s had to miss naps for various appointments and she’s been denied things “because we can’t have them in case they make the boy ill” and some trips out “in case there are things there that will make the boy ill”.  I’m not suprised she’s feeling a bit out of sorts.

What does surprise me is that when she’s not in meltdown (about 50% of her day) she’s incredibly sunny.  Good-tempered by nature I guess.

The beauty spot is biro by the way.

I’m incredibly impressed that the one person she’s not taking her anger and lack of sleep out on is the boy.  They are obviously very fond of each other and she’s been very gentle with him since last Wednesday.

As for the boy – he’s only 22 months and hasn’t a clue what, if anything, is going on.  It’s business as usual for him.

No Doubt

I finished the re-stocking of my cupboards today with Sainsbury’s non-nutty version of Tesco’s foods.  I was aware about half way into the shop that my trolley suddenly seemed much more difficult to steer.  Almost as if I’d just put something really heavy in.  The boy was walking in front of me, between me and the trolley, pretending to push it with me.  Or so I thought.

We can’t get an appointment at an allergy clinic with the NHS until at least December.  I don’t think I could manage a four month or possibly longer wait to find out exactly what the boy is allergic to so we decided to go private.  Not for the continued management of his allergy but to get the prick tests done and out of the way.  We were extremely lucky to get a cancellation for today (which almost made the price we paid worthwhile!) so off to London we all trundled this afternoon.

I remember feeling very strongly just before my first scans with both children that when we saw the screen there would be no baby.  That I would have somehow made it up and that my symptoms could be explained away by something else.  I had the same feeling this afternoon.  I was sure that he wouldn’t react to any of the tests at all and that maybe it was all a figment of my overactive imagination.

The Doctor we saw was lovely and took the time to explain things in a lot more detail than we’d had at the PRUH.  He did 8 prick tests.  I can’t remember all of them but they included house dust (negative) cat & dog dander (negative), tree pollen (negative) and, of course, peanut (positive – hands up who is surprised).  There were also 2 control tests.  One neutral which is an inert substance that his skin shouldn’t react to – if his skin reacts it invalidates the results, and one positive which is histamine – if his skin doesn’t react to this one then it means it’s not reacting properly and again invalidates the results.  The size of the peanut reaction in comparison to the histamine reaction gives an indication of how sensitive the boy is to peanuts.

Just down from the enormous welt is a freckle with a small red patch by it.  I mention the freckle because you may not be able to see the small red patch.  That is a normal reaction to histamines.  It would seem that the boy is really quite sensitive.

The size of the peanut reaction also determines how likely he is to grow out of it.  The larger the patch, the less likely he is to grow out of it.

I can’t decide at the moment if I feel more or less reassured than when I went in.  Yes, I know what I’m dealing with but to be honest it’s a lot worse than I realised.

R & R

We went to see the husband’s brother and wife today for a picnic in their local park.  We had planned it ages ago but the timing was great – we all needed a day out and a picnic was perfect as I could be a complete control freak about what the boy ate.

I only spent most of the day worrying that someone would have randomly dropped a peanut on the ground and that the boy would immediately find and eat it.  I’m nothing if not a worrier.

Of course, he didn’t eat anything even remotely nutty but he has worked out where his lunch goes.

The girl managed to fly her own kite as well.  She was understandably pleased with herself.

Every Little Helps

On Thursday we went to see a specialist nurse who showed us how to use an epi-pen.  Up until we left that appointment, with two epi-pens to be carried at all times, I think I was in denial about the whole thing.  I was living purely in the now and dealing with this episode.  Those two little tubes of adrenalin have really woken me up to the ongoing issues that we are going to face.

We also saw a dietitian who explained that until the boy has been to the allergy clinic to have prick tests done we have to assume that any nuts could trigger his allergic response.  It’s not just eating nuts that is a problem but also eating anything which might have had contact with nuts.

I was totally unprepared for the number of things in my kitchen cupboards that had the words “Ingredients – cannot guarantee nut free” on the label.  I can’t give the boy anything that has those words on it.  Also “Factory – made on the same production line as a product that contains nuts” or “Recipe – contains nuts”.  Having done some research it would seem that the supermarket I use, Tesco, is particularly bad for this.

These are the some of the items I have had to remove from my cupboards (and they are all this supermarket’s own brand items) – rice, pasta, cornflakes, rice snaps (rice crispies by another name), olive oil, sunflower oil, sugar, raisins, mixed fruit, glace cherries.  How many of these would you assume would be dangerous to a nut allergy sufferer?

I was initially overwhelmed.  It was beginning to look like the boy wouldn’t actually be able to eat anything.  However, as I said, I did some research and found that if I went to Sainsbury’s instead of Tesco our lives would be a lot easier.

Sainsbury’s don’t put the nut warning on as many foods.  They’re a big company and I’m assuming that if there’s a chance that something has been contaminated with nuts they’re going to tell me because, amongst other things, they don’t want the bad publicity, so I trust their labelling.  I don’t feel I can trust Tesco’s labelling – it feels to me like they’re putting that warning on too many things to cover themselves.

I’ve also found out that a lot of the supermarkets will send you a list of their own brand foods that are “Free From” various allergens.  Tesco doesn’t.

I’ll be doing my shopping in Sainsbury’s from now on.  If I stick with Tesco then the boy will be living on air and water.  I know he’s sturdy but he hasn’t got that much in reserve!

Nuts

When I got up yesterday morning it didn’t feel like anything momentous was going to happen.  I’m beginning to realise though that it never does feel like something momentous is going to happen on the day that it does.

My lovely, pregnant, little sister came to visit on Tuesday so that she, me and the husband could go and see Pearl Jam at the 02 on Tuesday evening (they were fab).  We were late home and the husband & I might have been a bit pissed so neither of us fancied getting up early on Wednesday.  I can’t remember the reason that I drew the short straw (probably because I usually make the husb do it and have been feeling a bit guilty of late) but I shuffled out of bed when we heard the boy start to grumble.

Me and the boy came downstairs and I gave him breakfast but decided to have mine a bit later (when my stomach had stopped churning).

I don’t think I’ve ever been so glad to have postponed a meal.

When I did finally have my breakfast (by which time the husband, the girl and lovely little sister were all up) I decided to have toast with, on a complete whim as I probably haven’t had any for 6 months at least, peanut butter.  As is usual when I’m eating, as soon as I sat down both the boy and the girl came over demanding toast with menaces.  I gave them both a small piece.

The girl wandered off and ate hers with no fuss at all.  The boy put the toast in his mouth and proceeded to do the food hokey kokey – he took it out, put it back in again, complained it was hot, spat it out, tried to eat it again, waved it all about, and finally dumped it on the floor.

Then he started scratching his neck (under the jaw) and behaving irrittably.  Being irritated for the boy is not abnormal behaviour so we set about trying to work out what was wrong this time.  We couldn’t get to the bottom of it, but every Wendesday morning a man on a mechanical sweeper goes up and then down (and sometimes down and then up) our street so the husb took the boy to have a look at that (working on the premise that the boy loves any sort of petrol/deisel/even battery if desperate vehicle).

He settled for approximately 2.5 seconds and when the husband bought him back I noticed some raised white spots under his eyes. We called NHS Direct (which I probably won’t ever do again) and sat through a series of being put on hold while the lady I spoke to (totally not her fault but I’m not impressed with the time delays) finally decided to call us an ambulance.

The boy was looking very puffy around the face by this time and was getting more and more distressed.  He heard us talking about an ambulance and calmed down when we told him we could see one so I took him out front to wait for it.  We’ve had ambulances in the past and the paramedics have come into the house, assessed the situation, treated the problem if they can and then decided whether or not we needed to go to hospital.  This time the ambulance pulled up in front of the house, the paramedic got out, looked at the boy and suggested that I get straight into the back of the ambulance.  That was when I realised that things might be going a bit awry.

We chatted for a bit about what had happened and I was asked which hospitals I knew in the area.  When I told them I knew a particular hospital well as we’d been there for various episodes in the past including the boy’s wheezing they weren’t thrilled as it wasn’t the nearest hospital but agreed to take us there.  At the same time a paramedic car arrived and the chap driving it hopped into the back of the ambulance with us.  I guess that’s what happens when someone official calls an ambulance for you – when I had the boy and had to go to hosp afterwards we also had a paramedic car and an ambulance.  We set off and I have to admit that I was beginning to feel more and more concerned not only with the boy but the amount of health officials that were being thrown at us.  I still don’t really understand what drove the decision (a dip in blood pressure is a sign of anaphylaxis and I’m fairly sure that’s what they picked up as his blood pressure was being taken every 3 minutes, or so it seemed) but the boy was given an adrenaline injection about half way to the hospital.  When we got to the hospital we were taken directly to recuss, not A&E.  There’s nothing like walking into a fairly small room full of medical equipment and 16 (I counted them) members of medical staff, none of whom were students or newly qualified, to make you really think about your situation.  The boy at this point was clinging onto me but otherwise ok so after he was thoroughly checked over, we got sent round to A&E and I breathed a deep breath of relief.  Prematurely as it turns out.

We got a temporary bed in A&E straight away as we’d already been in recuss which seems to cover admission and triage but had to stay around to be observed.  I thought we were doing ok so we went to the play room to avoid severe boredom on the boys behalf.  It was when we were in the play room that I realised that the boy was coughing a lot and when I picked him up I could hear wheezing.  One of the things that people usually think of when they think of anaphylaxis is difficulty in breathing and I knew this so I knocked on the triage nurse’s door.  She took his sats and immediately sent us back to his temporary bed for oxygen, then after consultation, prednisolone (a steroid used, as far as I can tell, in asthma cases) and a nebuliser.  I had thought that the worst was over but the boy suddenly developed hives all over his body.  It was terribly fast and terribly furious.  He had large white welts all over his body on a background of red.  He spent the next half an hour or so chasing the itch (anyone out there who has had urticaria will know what I mean).  Because he’d had an anaphylactic reaction we had to be admitted onto the childrens ward for observations.

The rest of the day was quite tame in comparison.  We were on the children’s ward for the rest of the day.  The boy’s reaction finally gave into all the drugs that had been thrown at it and his little body stopped itching.  At about 4 o’clock he gave up and fell asleep on the husband.  He was put into a cot while we waited for discharge papers that turned up at 6pm.

I’ve missed out the bits where the husband turned up with the girl and lovely little sister and the bits where they left again because I can’t really remember clearly when they where and weren’t there.

Today we had to go back to the hospital to be trained in the use of an epi-pen and to talk about nuts and what the boy can have.  That seems to be pretty much nothing at the moment.  We will go to the allergy clinic to have him tested for various allergens but until then he can’t have any nuts, or anything that might contain nuts or anything that might have been made in a factory that might have once had nuts in it

I’ve gone through all my cupboards and moved anything potentially dangerous out of the way.  Nursery are well set up to deal with it (3 members of staff are epi-pen trained and the building is nut free).  All I have to do now is tell all my friends that they may not, under any circumstance, feed my son unless I’ve read the packet first.

I’m not convinced I’m ready for this.

Planes, Trains & Automobiles

My plan to post at least a picture everyday was sorely tested today.  I don’t have time to explain right now because it’s bedtime and we’re having to give the boy medicine overnight so every minute of sleep is precious.  He’s ok and I will give you all the gory details tomorrow.

In the meantime, I took this a couple of days ago.  I know it doesn’t look like there’s a train.  There is, you just can’t see it!

What’s This For Then?

Lacklustre

I miss my blog.  More to the point, I miss the discipline of blogging every day.  As you can see, from the ever lengthening gaps between posts, left to my own devices I’m a very lazy blogger.

I’m also finding that I’m not picking the camera up as much (it might actually be dusty at the moment, it’s been so long).  Part of that is to do with the fact that it’s got a different lens on it that I’m not used to.  I know, I know.  Start using it and I’ll soon get the hang of it.  Oh, and we didn’t go out and get a swishy new one – the other one broke.

So, I’ve come up with a compromise.  I’m going to go back to posting a photograph a day but there won’t necessarily be any words wrapped around the picture – unless I’ve actually got something interesting to say.

How does that sound?

I took this on my trusty old point and shoot.  It’s macro setting is amazing.