Thank God for Health Insurance

Two posts in three days... unheard of, but I'm feeling the need to vent, or journal, or something...

This past Sunday after church we decided to make like civilized folks and go sit down at a restaurant and have brunch. Thanks to our 'blue sky' coupon book, we stumbled in the The Blackbird Cafe. Chris and I split a lovely breakfast burrito, and the kids split an order of French toast. When our food came out I noticed that there were nuts sprinkled on top of the French toast. Elise historically does NOT like nuts AT ALL. I mean, you could set a piece of chocolate the size of her head (she does, by the way, love chocolate) and if it had so much as a half a pecan on it, she'll walk away saying, "I don't like nuts." I've always attributed this to good 'ol child pickiness. When the French toast came out I thought, "This is not going to be a go, but we'll give it a shot." Well, she ate it. All was well. Until about four hours later (which is quite unusual... apparently these things tend to be more immediate). She became immensely congested and started coughing, as well as heaving like she was going to throw up. Then came the hives... she was itching like crazy. She fell asleep pretty quickly, but every time I'd go check on her, she was itching in her sleep.

So, I call the doctor on Monday morning. Oh, and how could I forget, I have to backtrack... on Friday night we were at a new family dinner for Jerod's school. To make a long and miserable story slightly less long and miserable, he pooped his pants. He was soooooo sad and distraught. It's happened a few times before, so we decided it was time for a visit to the doctor. So, now, back to Monday morning. I call the nurse advisor at our clinic to chat. I tell her about Elise, she basically says, "Get her in TODAY." Then I explain Jerod's situation, and she says, "Yes, we should probably see him too." He was already at school, so I made an appointment for today (Friday).

Elise and I head to the doctor. The one pleasant surprise of this whole story is that the clinic's food allergy guru that we were seeing walked in, and, it turns out, we go to church with her. So, I tell her the whole story. She says, "most definitely sounds like food allergy, let's draw blood, and let's get you a couple of epi pens." Epi pens???????!!!!!!! NO NO NO NO!!! I do NOT want this to be that big of a deal. But, bad things have happened, so we have one now, as well as one to keep at preschool. She called this morning and left a message with the results: cashew allergy, potential peanut, and questionable walnut and hazelnut allergies. I'm not sure what the difference is between potential and questionable in these circumstances. On the message she said, "Catch up with me at church and we can talk more." So, more to come on that later, I guess.

Which brings us to this afternoon. Jerod's appointment was at 2:45, so I grabbed him from school and we went. We saw our regular pediatrician this time, the beloved Dr. Carlson. After lots of chatting back and forth, it seems there's a lot of things going on: awareness of body, trouble going at school, just plain 'ol being too busy to poo. "But," she says, "let's just do an Xray to make sure he's not full of poop and constipated." Well, the kid is full of poop. She came in and told me he's got a big mass of poo at the bottom of his intestine. She didn't show me the Xray, but it happened to still be hanging up when we left, and HOLY COW... definitely full of poop. So, our fun Friday night is going to consist of a glycerin suppository, and beginning daily administration of miralax.

Both of these things are giving me a slight dose of mommy guilt. Elise had shown some of these signs earlier, and I think I had ignored them out of fear or just denial. Thankfully it didn't turn out any worse than it did. When I was telling the nurse about the coughing during her episode she basically told me that's really bad, because that means there's airway issues. So so scary to me. Needless to say, I will take these things more seriously in the future. And Jerod. Well, he was late to potty train, has had sporadic problems with the issue, and I just thought it was an awareness issue. I've probably given him WAY too hard of a time along the way.

So... here we are. Tomorrow is a new day. We are all older and wiser. I must say, ignorance was bliss.

Blog, what blog??

Good grief. I really cannot believe I haven't written on here since Christmas. 2009 has come in much as 2008 went out... busy.
We had a great Christmas. We went to church on Christmas eve, then enjoyed some Chinese food with some of our great neighbors. Christmas morning was opening presents and gingerbread waffles. Mom and Dad came later in the day, and we feasted on the traditional (or not) Christmas fajitas.
We left on New Year's Day for Lutsen, MN and went skiing with three other families. We had a great time, then came home to get back to reality (less of a great time!).

I'm curious as to what happened to January. I blinked and it was gone. We made the annual pilgrimage to Ames to watch KU battle ISU. I'm happy to report that we still haven't seen the Jayhawks lose there! Oh yeah, and I just had a birthday... thus the Benihana picture. The photographer apparently though Donna's head was extraneous.

Both kids are doing well and keeping busy. Jerod is reading, which is amazing. I didn't realize that would happen in kindergarten (being the oldest kid in his class may have something to do with it). In addition to school, he's still taking piano lessons; and is becoming quite skilled on the snowboard. Elise goes to school on Thursdays and Fridays, and takes in swimming lessons and gymnastics.

We are really really ready to be done with winter. This has been a tough one in terms of weather. Despite the doldrums, Chris and I are looking to spring and are currently signed up for two half marathons... one in April and one in May.

This sounds like a Christmas letter, but I guess I felt I had some catching up to do...