Allergies suck!

So, I cannot believe I haven't even posted about this yet! So, on Valentines day, Wes and I took the kids with us to lunch for a secret shop. I brought Gerber baby peaches to feed Kindle. I was feeding them to her and she broke out in hives and got all swollen. So, we stopped feeding her peaches got some benedryl ASAP, and she was fine, but seemingly allergic to peaches. Here are pictures taken of her at the restaurant. It is hard to tell the hives and swelling, but trust me, they are there:

So, Monday the 16th Kindle had a well baby check up, at which we decided she needed to see an allergist to verify said allergy. Especially since kids will be staying with my parents and Wes's parents while we are in Canada on our anniversary. So, we go to the allergist later that week. I thought they were going to do the skin testing (ew), but instead, given her age and allergy type, he thought a blood draw test would be better to verify this allergy and to rule out other common kid allergies. He told me if the peach test was negative, we would then do the peach skin test to verify allergy as it can sometimes have a negative blood test, but still be an allergy that is caught with the skin test. Also, she is now needing to have an epi-pen with her at all times in case she has an allergy that causes such swelling that she cannot breath. So, I tote Kindle off to the Children's hospital lab where the blood draw needs to happen, after which I will go to the pharmacy to get said epi-pen (actually it is a "twin-ject" but same thing as an epi-pen essentially).

So, we get to the hospital where there is no wait at the lab, but by the time they process us in the check-in, there is quite a wait there. So, we wait and wait, pass the time I told my wonderful relief society sister who is watching the boys that I would be home, then they call us back. They
look at her arms-poor Kindle as it turns out has crappy veins like her mommy, and they have trouble finding one in her right arm. so they don't try and start to look in her left arm. Bingo-they find one they think will work...WRONG! They dig around in her arm for a good 5 minutes, get the vein, get about 1 ml of blood (they need 6), and the vein collapses. So they toss the blood they got, and start over on the other arm. (mom is losing it by now and about to faint and cry and run out of the room screaming, but trying to remain calm for baby girl).

On to arm right (again) they again dig and dig for another 5 minutes or so. They get a vein, It seems to be working, they cannot get any more than 3 ml from it. They NEED 6. At this point, both her arm are unusable-they are bruised and sore and veins have collapsed. The phlebotomists do not know what to do and ask if I can sit and wait for another hour for her to calm down and recover so they can try again. I ask if there is another option, they say they will ask the Pathologist if they can draw the rest of the blood another way while I wait.

I call my friend at home to make sure we are OK still. She says she can stay until she needs to go pick up her kids from school (great still another 2 hours!). I wait another 20 minutes or so. They call us back again and say that they can try to get the rest of the blood through a finger poke. They poke her finger and spend 15 minutes squeezing blood out of her finger. They get 2 ml. At this point we are up to 5 ml (6 had they not thrown out the first one), and they need 6...they ask the pathologist if that is enough. He says he has to wait for it to coagulate to see and asks me to wait another 20 minutes to see if it is enough. It was!!!

So, like hours later and who know how much money later, we head home.

The results came back last week-negative to all tested foods. Their next step is to test her by A)a skin test, then B) giving her a peach and watching to see what happens. Wes is a doctor, and he already did test B-what happens is that she swells up and breaks into hives. So, allergy doctor and Wes are both fairly certain that in spite of test result, she is allergic to peaches. We are opting not to subject her to further testing at this point, and are calling it a peach allergy.

Poor baby-a life without peaches-so sad! In case you were unaware, if you are breastfeeding a baby and they have an allergy, you cannot eat that food either. My month without peaches has been torture, and I feel so sad for her!