Allergy Update

This past Tuesday we took Ela to an allergist after her allergic episode last week. I was pretty sure that it was the Sesame, but I was so nervous to feed her all weekend. Its crazy how I went from letting her try tons of new things to literally staring at her while she ate EVERYTHING! Tomasz flew home for the day to come with me because the testing involved a series of 20 small "pinches/pricks". I knew Ela was not going to like it.



They tested her for all types of nuts, pets, shellfish, and outdoor allergens such as pollen, ragweed etc. They do the pinches and she can not move or scratch them for 15 minutes while they react. She HATED life! Within 1 minute we saw one arm get a bunch of the little reaction bumps so we knew she was allergic to something. Anyone want to take a guess.....

The unlucky winners are....

*Sesame

*All Nuts with the exception

of hazelnut,cashews and pistachios.

*DOGS!! - Where did this one come from?

Not sure if you remember but last year around this time Ela had eczema all over her body that would not go away. When we moved from our apartment in Manhattan to Brooklyn, the eczema went away. The only catch was is Ozzy dog did too! :( We were not sure if it was the water in the apartment or the dog. I guess we have our answer now. I at least feel good knowing Ozzy has a good home.

Happiest Baby on 54th Street

In an effort to be positive, at least we know what she is allergic to and can manage it. I try to put myself in other mothers shoe's and I know Ela could be alot worse off  with other diseases or illnesses. A few small life changes and she wont even know the difference. The doctor encouraged us to feed her the nuts that she is not allergic to, not only to help her allergy but to prevent allergies to those in particular. She offered to let us give them to her in her office over the summer.(Yes, I want supervision) Every year we will test Ela and hopefully she will out grow her allergies. (25% of children do outgrow the allergy- yes i googled it)

On a lighter note, here are two random pictures. On the way home Ela was out of it,dazed in the car seat. We always look at her baby pictures(not that she is that big now), and say how it does not even look like her. This is a priceless  face that she made at 1 month and then again at 14 months. Even the hands were the same!

Maybe I should change my blog to say something than "Our little PEANUT is here" ....Just kidding!

My Sweet Tomato!

Anyone with kids should read what happened to my sweet little Ela this week.

Ela recently has grown an appetite. My little self made vegetarian since 9 months has ditched her vegan ways. She is loving meat and I am trying to get her to eat other things besides her regular foods covered in tomato sauce. I had gone to Trader Joe's on Sunday and found some Tahini sauce.(Tahini is ground sesame seeds, lemon, garlic, and oil- I learned this after the fact) When I was pregnant I ate Falafals every other day. My friend Lauren and her boyfriend got me hooked and by the time Ela was born the restaurants owner new me by name and what I ordered. Tahini is the sauce that goes on the Falafel. I was so excited to find it! So thats how our evening started....

I cut up some cucumbers and tossed them in the Tahini sauce. I gave one to Ela and she loved it. Within minutes she started coughing. Initially I thought she was choking. I started hitting her back but she kept coughing. I pulled her out of the highchair and noticed she was turning red. I stuck my finger in her mouth to see if I could feel anything and there was nothing in her mouth. She continued to turn red and cough and then she threw up. After she got sick I looked at her and her eyes were swollen shut and lips look like a duck. I realized she was having an allergic reaction. I was SO scared! I was by myself. I called 911 and while they were on the phone I remembered reading in a Mommy book to give Benadryl for allergic reactions. Luckily I had some because Ela had been sick the past few weeks. She was so swollen at this point that she could not open her mouth or even stand up. I took a straw and got as much as I could in her throat. I then thought to go down to the lobby of my building as it would be better to be around other people while I waited for the ambulance. Going downstairs there was another Mom in the elevator who was the biggest help. Immediately when she saw Ela she asked what happened and stayed with me until the ambulance left. She is a Mom to a 3 month old so she was a great help. At this point the small amount of Benadryl opened Ela's passageways enough that she began to cough again and throw up. On top of turning, she now had red hives all over her body.The ambulance came and Ela continued to get sick which they said was the best thing for her at this point. This is when I lost it. I think that once I knew I had help I could truly let my emotions go. I was so surprised how calm I remained before they got there. The EMS workers were great and calmed me down and told me Ela could pick up on my emotions so it was important to stay calm.We arrived at the hospital and immediately she got examined,got ephedrine (Epi Pen- basically adreniline), more benadryl and Albuteral which is a steroid breathing treatment. She still was bright red and covered in hives but she began to say "mama" and run around the Triage area. Thank GOD my little tomboy was healthy! We were sent home with two Epi Pens in case of a future reaction.
Here are a few pictures of Ela on the road to recovery:

She is a messy eater...This is before.

About 30 minutes after she got meds.
Still very swollen.

About an hour after meds.
Playing while we wait for the hives
to go down.

Here is what I learned:

*ALWAYS have Benadryl in your house and know the dose for your childs weight.
Although Ela is an anaphaltic(severe allergic including closing of airways) Benadryl will slow down the effects of allergies.
* Reading (sometimes excessively) parenting books paid off
Tomasz makes fun of me for being a "Google Queen" and consulting parenting books all the time. It never clicked with Benadryl and an allergic reaction but it was in the back of my head from reading those books. It saved her life.
* Top 10 childhood allergies
I was so shocked that Ela most likely had a reaction to Sesame. I never thought about it as an allergy but it alot more common than I thought.

1. Dairy
2. Eggs
3. Fish
4. Peanuts
5. Tree nuts (walnuts, almonds, cashews, pecans, etc)
6. Sesame
7. Shellfish and other seafood
8. Soy
9. Wheat
10. Gluten

*Ela is a TROOPER!
The past few months have been rough for her. She started daycare, got the tummy flu, cold after cold, a double ear infection and now a severe allergic reaction.

I am so happy that she is healthy and ok. On Tuesday we are going to be visiting an Allergist to find out exactly what she is allergic to. They will give her a series of "pricks" with allergens on her back. Whatever hives appear will indicate what she is allergic too. This comes as a surprise as there is very few allergies in mine or Tomasz's family. I am nervous to put her through the testing but very anxious to get the results to make sure we don't give her anything she is allergic too.

Here are a few links(they don't call me the google queen for nothing)

 Anaphylactic Toddlers- What do I do?

Top 10 Common Foods to Avoid in Toddlers

Benadryl

What doesnt kill you makes you stronger....

Isn't that the truth!
If you keep up with my blog you can see the past few weeks have been a little challenging. And then came the icing on the cake.... I had emergency surgery to remove my appendix. Again can we say great timing?! For the past 6 months I have been having pains in my tummy but they ended up coming and going. I was told they were my hormones settling down from the pregnancy, a kidney infection and an ulcer. WRONG! It was chronic appendicitis. It was basically flare ups and then two weeks ago it became acute appendicitis leading to surgery. I was very grateful that we caught it somewhat early. I was in alot of pain but not as bad as it could have been. I was also very thankful Tomasz was at home when it happened. I went in for a CT Scan after a weekend of pain and nausea. They told me I would have the results in 48 hours. By the time I got off the subway 15 minutes later I had two missed calls to get to the ER immediatly. This was the last thing I expected to happen.

Recovering from abdominal surgery is no easy task. Due to the placement of my now former appendix, the surgery had to be done the old fashion knife way. I was cut through 3 layers of muscles, and did not realize how much I used them.Actually let me rephrase this....Recovering from abdominal surgery with a 1 year old is an even harder task!

While waiting to go into surgery Ela was running all over the hospital. This scared the crap out of me with all the germs. So I gave in and let her in bed with me. As you can see from the second picture I was in pain when she laid on me. When I woke up and was in recovery Ela looked scared to see me. I dont remember, but Tomasz said she just wanted to get in bed with me and kept pointing and saying "Ma".

I was so grateful to have all of the help and support from family and friends. They were all so willing to help and made everything much easier. I feel so lucky to have such good family near and far. Here are a few pictures from the past few weeks while I was recovering.

Uncle Stephen giving Ela a bath. One morning as I am laying in bed while he is getting ready for daycare I hear "Ela, please go poop at daycare so they have to change it and not me"- HOW CUTE!

Smiley in the morning. She loved having lots of family in town.

Uncle Stephen gave me a new hairstyle.

Helping Mommy carry the Dreft since she cant lift.- My kid is strong!

 I am slowly recovering. Not really in anymore pain just very sore. Hard times like the past few months do have a purpose. I have realized how lucky I am to have a now healthly family and such an amazing and supportive family.