Sigh

I am perhaps starting my grieving prematurely, but I can't help it.

After the hospital stay with Linus, we got an appointment to see the allergist to discuss his allergies, asthma, and our options.

Dr. Walker is pretty alright. I like her. She is very knowledgeable, is pretty good with kids, and is very on the ball. I was not expecting to do the scratch test that day, but lo and behold, we did. For those of you who don't know anything about allergy scratch testing, they have these little blue toothpick looking things with a prong tip. They lay in solutions of whatever the allergen is and the nurse makes a little scratch with the prongs. It looks like little tiny papercuts after the welts go down. The first two are the controls. One is saline and the other is straight histamine. No one is allergic to water and the other lets the doctor see what his welts look like with straight histamine so they can measure the other hives better.

Linus sat sitting on my lap, tummy to tummy, and screamed the whole time. Not that I blame him. The first welt had to itch like a mother and the other ones that welted up due to his allergy had to itch pretty bad too.

Can I just interject with my little story about how Linus's bowel timing and my lack of super-duper preparedness is an occasional panic inducing, giggle later extravaganza? We were at the doctor and I only took my purse thinking that we'd be there an hour at the most, and I'd at the most only need one diaper. Linus seemed to be pretty wet, so I changed his diaper. The doctor comes in and I look over and he's squatting in the corner, performing is daily morning evacuation. Sigh. And it stinks. Bad.

So, The doctor left, I grabbed his old diaper that I just took off of him, cleaned him off the best I could, picked out as much of the solids as I could and reattached the diaper. I figured that if I got most of it out, it wouldn't stink as bad and it was still dry, so it wouldn't be too uncomfortable. Better than a wet one. I happened to have a ziplock baggie I could put the now stinky diaper in and we continued on with our appointment. And of course, Matt just laughs at me.

So, when all is said and done:
Medical Plan:                                                                From the desk of:
For:                                                                                 Kay B. Walker, M.D.
Linus M Bailey 3/24/10

Allergy to dog, deer (ya, I don't know why we tested for that, but there it is. Kind of like Matt's uncle who was tested for and was allergic to elephant sweat.), gerbil, mouse, rabbit, rats, egg, grass/pollen (May to July.).

His big one was rat and egg was big, but she said that the egg allergy was normal to see what with his excema and that we'd just keep an eye on it every year with the flu vaccine since it is made in eggs. I can give him eggs in baked goods but no raw ones (as in batter) and not to push eggs on him scrambled, fried, boiled etc. She recommended this year we have plastic eggs for Easter. Luckily he has no allergies to nuts, milk, or wheat. But her plan of attack is to keep him on the meds he's on now and keep benedryl, zyrtec, and claritin around and to give them when we go to a place with known allergens.

And avoidance, avoidance, avoidance. Here comes my premature grieving. We have 3 dogs. She said the allergies will not get better, but will only get worse. I used to love going to my Granny's house where she had a ton of Persian cats. I developed an allergy to them that only got worse and worse until I could no longer go over without severe discomfort. Or meds that knocked me out. I can now be in a house with cats, but the kitty litter sets me off and if I forget to wash my hands after petting a cat, my eyes swell shut and it is the most uncomfortable thing I've ever experienced. Ever have the white of your eye swell around your iris? I wait for my eye to explode in that situation. It's not pretty.

I don't want that to me Linus. So, do we do all we can to limit his exposure to the dogs by getting rid of them? I don't want to get rid of Moxie or Pali. I have already had to get rid of my George because an ultimatum was presented. Either George or my husband. I don't want to have to deal with another ultimatum.

So, I am grieving for my lost dogs that we still have but will most likely inevitably happen. And I'm crushed.

The things we do for our kids.