progress

We had the muffin challenge this week and it went pretty well.  No serious reaction, he after eating almost all of a mini muffin he started to get stuffy but it was hard to know if it was the milk that did it.  The next day we forgot to leave Grandma a note and she didn't get my text till after breakfast explaining which muffins were dairy and which were soy.  So he probably ate just over 2 mini muffins pretty quickly and didn't have a reaction.  Later that night it seemed like he possibly bothering him with several diaper changes and since then we have slacked on giving him milk muffins.  So, we will be picking that up tomorrow and trying to give him a little bit each day (ideally) but at least 3 - 4 times a week.  Then we will check back in with the doctor in May and possibly try cooked cheese.  Exiting but we're still a little nervous about it.

nutty

Yesterday we had the peanut & tree nut challenge at the dr's office.  We did the skin test first with peanut butter on his skin and he was fine so we were able to smear some on a cracker for him to try.  He really liked it! He was not a fan of the almonds or cashews plain but once we smashed them and put them on little peanut butter cracker sandwiches he was totally fine with it.  We started with just a little bit and waited about 10 minutes or so and gave him more and more each time... and there were no reactions!  He is safe to eat peanuts and tree nuts based on past skin testing and blood work. Still a little frightening to imagine him eating any nut so we plan to watch him closely.  It feels like a nice start, though.  We will go back in a few weeks to try the muffin challenge with milk.  A recent study found that three-fourths of children with milk allergy can tolerate baked milk products.  Hoping Elliot will fall under that group of kids. :)

colds = no fun

Elliot caught a cold earlier this week and by Friday started to wheeze.  He was still active with his cousins so it was hard to know what to do.  After talking to the nurse at the doctor's office they had us come in just to be sure everything was OK.  I actually packed a bag for the hospital thinking it was more likely we would end up there for the night vs. going home. 
At the visit they checked his oxygen levels which were still good, thank goodness!  We had started giving him albuterol that morning but they gave him a dose in the office through the nebulizer.  They also perscribed a steroid to start.  It was a good visit - it wasn't Elliot's regular doctor but one we have seen often and had admitted us the 1st time to the hospital.  We talked more about us knowing his asthma and being able to manage it.  Which is something that came up before but it was nice to talk about because originally I felt like if this happened we would be at the hospital.  This time we caught things before they got worse and hopefully his flovent helped.  (which he is now just taking at first signs of a cold and a couple weeks following).
2qqqqaaqqq12q2w1 - a note from Elliot.

He was spitting out his medicine the last time but has been pretty good about taking the inhaler.  He is doing much better and just being crazy and wild as ever, keeping us busy.

allergy update

We finally visited with the allergist to check up on Elliot's allergies this week. This time we met with a different doctor in the office, which at first I was a little disappointed about until we actually met with him and I quickly changed my mind.  This doctor spent a lot of time going over things with us and answering our questions and thinking of questions on his own to give us an answer to.  Since Elliot is older and has a better way of communicating with us it allows us to do more than just wait each year to get tested.  But this year the blood work showed that the egg and dairy allergy have improved some and we were able to get a better understanding of where he is with it by comparing the results with last year.  There is a number scale that shows that he was ranging 28 last year for egg and this year it is closer to 26.  For dairy it was around 13 last year and is closer to 7 this year.  So he is more likely to outgrow his dairy allergy sooner than his egg allergy.  These numbers can go down a little more each year, but you never know how quickly it could happen.  The doctor suggested a food challenge in their office with baked or heated dairy (dairy - for now since the levels were much lower).  Some kids can tolerate the food this way as some of the proteins are cooked out. If he can tolerate it baked/heated it could hopefully help speed up the process to help his body tolerate it, completely.  If he does OK, we can slowly keep adding a little more heated/baked dairy to his diet till he can freely eat it. 

But before we start with dairy we are going to try a challenge with nuts.  He has never been positive for peanuts but had small reactions from skin and blood work with other nuts in the past - that they had us avoiding all of them.   On the 30th we will be doing the nut challenge, and hopefully it goes well so we can add some nuts to our meals.  If he can have almonds and cashews we would be happy for now,  we could replace soy milk or some of it with almond milk and he could eat the mac & cheese (cheese made with cashews) at the vegan bakery.   

Praying that we can eat a little more freely.

asthma... it is?

Last Tuesday came a runny nose.  At the time we were thinking maybe teething or allergies.  Elliot was still playful and didn't have a fever.  Then Thursday evening Elliot and I were outside on the porch waiting for Daddy to come home.  My allergies felt terrible and Elliot seemed itchy too.  Once Daddy finally came home we went inside and I took some medicine and thought if Elliot felt anything like I felt that he needed something too.  So we gave him benadryl.  He took a nap and when he woke up Dad was the first to notice his grunt when he was breathing - it was just like the last time he was sick. 

We started with some albuterol from the nebulizer which maybe  helped a little bit.  Elliot had a shower (with Dad) and once he was out he was sleeping again.  I left a message with the doctor on call and when she called back I told her how he was breathing and that he was taking 48 breaths per minute but said he seemed a little bit better now that he was sleeping.  She said that the breaths were a little bit concerning and that it's hard to say how he is doing without looking at him.  She said we could give him a little bit and see how he was doing or suggested taking him to the emergency room then.  We decided to wait a little bit, but Elliot woke up again and again and his breathing wasn't improving.  So just after 11pm we headed up to the hospital.  

It was much faster than I imagined to get in.  I gave our information and they sent us to the back right away and we went over things with someone there and then they headed us to the back right away.  We waited longer there after for someone to come in.  Elliot was hooked up to the monitor and his breathing was in the low 80's - it was a good decision to go and we were glad we didn't wait longer.  

They gave him oxygen and took a swab to do a test for viruses.  They suggested an x-ray and I was glad that Josiah spoke up asking if it was really necessary right now.  They explained how much things have changed but with all the x-rays that he has already had and something Josiah heard on NPR it was nice that they didn't push the x-ray further and just gave him albuterol which seemed to help so they then did the super dose and told us we would be staying overnight.

By 3 am we were in the room we would be staying in and maybe after 4 we were settled enough to get some rest.  Elliot stayed on oxygen and started an oral steroid and was taking albuterol every 3 hours or so.  I think it was by that afternoon that one of the doctors came by and talked about asthma.  They said that Elliot had rhinovirus again and that the virus is what triggers the asthma flare.  As they explained asthma to us it made sense how Elliot's cousins all get sick but he gets affected so badly it was just strange that they stopped the athma medicine last time we were there.  Elliot is just a classic case of asthma with his eczema, food allergies and frequent hospital visits.

We stayed another night because Elliot still need oxygen and through the next night he was on room air.  After an albuterol treatment he needed more oxygen still that morning so we were staying until he napped and had another dose.  So just after five we were released, yesterday. 

For now Elliot has to finish out the oral steroid and started flovant which is the asthma controller he will need to take twice a day and is taking the albuterol now through an inhaler (which is much easier) every 4-6 hours.  We have a follow up with his doctor tomorrow and will go from there.  Elliot definitely is doing better - and only time will tell how this asthma plays out.  It was just hard to accept with one other thing to worry about on top of his allergies but we can handle this... I hope!

out of that tunnel

So some people know that we had been dealing with some frustrating viruses around here for some time.  But if you didn't know it started just over a month ago.  First Elliot started to run a fever and had a terrible runny nose.  His fever went away after a few days and we thought we were in the clear.  Then a couple days later came a cough which we also thought was just a part of him getting over the cold he must have picked up.  So a few more days go by and he started to run a fever again and he started to grunt while he was breathing. 

This isn't something completely new for him so we weren't immediately concerned.  We have a nebulizer and albuterol and tried some of that which didn't seem to help too much but really only seems to have helped once in the 4-5 occasions.  I was first hesitant to bring him to the doctor because he had a time where he sounded similar and was fine.  We've also started to become concerned with the amount of X-Ray's he's had - that in the end come up fine each time that I was being hopeful that time would heal him.  I also felt like we ususally jump the gun and take him in when we could have given him a day and he would be fine.  I ended up making an appointment.  As I was getting him ready I thought should I really be taking him to the doctor maybe I should go to the ER because I had been having a hard time consoling him.  But when we got ready to go he finally seemed a little better and was excited to go. 
They checked his oxygen when we got to the office and it was all over the place. 50-60's for a few seconds, 80's here and there and 60's again. He was not happy at all at this time crying and fighting to stay close to me. Once he calmed down it stayed in the low 80's. Anything below 88 is bad, so they said we were going to have to go to Primary's. Then the next question was if I could drive him there or if we would have to go by ambulance. A few other doctor's came in and watched his oxygen levels for a bit and glanced at Elliot and said Ambulance. Elliot's the only 1 year old I know that has been in an ambulance twice.

So we headed to the ER and they admitted us - took an x-ray that didn't show anything bacterial and a swab test.  They tried out more albuterol and a super albuterol treatment that they thought had helped but it turned out it wasn't really helping his oxygen.  So after some time Elliot got used to the oxygen they were giving to him and it was helping him.  They would suction him when necessary and kept him on the oxygen.  When he was sleeping they did have to turn it up the first night we were there but the following night he needed less oxygen and we were able to go home after 2 nights without any oxygen.  Josiah had said that we hadn't been having very exciting weekends so this was our little "getaway" for the weekend.  Turns out Elliot had rhinovirus/bronchiolitis.  We stayed home with him for a few days as he continued to get better. 

The following week Elliot started to run a fever again and his breathing seemed a little off.  After another doctor visit and this time being sent to PMC for another x-ray and swab test to be sure he didn't pick up pnemonia and verify if it was a different virus turned out he picked up parainfluenza.  More of the bronchiolitis type.  After a week home with him  he continued to get better.  Hopefully that's the last of the viruses - at least for spring!

Here are some of the pics from our hospital visit.  I thought Elliot sure looked cute in the hospital outfit.  I sure didn't miss the oxygen tubes on his face - however, this hospital stay was much nicer than the last since we were with him the whole time.

Changing the channels on the TV was one of the first things that started to make him happy.

the phone did help him feel better too and it was a nice change from hanging out on the bed.

the nurses were so sweet and brought us bubbles and toys to entertain Elliot.

He is such a sweet kid and did so well with having to be there and deal with the doctors/nurses in and out and suctioning him.  I hope we don't have another visit like this again but am very glad there is a place we can go when we need to that will help him get better.

18 Months

It has become so much harder to keep him still for one of these pictures, but here he is. 

At Elliot's 18 month check up he hadn't gained weight from his last visit.  He's stayed around 19 lbs for the last few months.  Our pediatrician refered us to a Dietician... luckily our insurance covered the visit!  At the visit we learned that Elliot's head circumfrence has followed the same curve since birth, which means that he has the potential to grow "as normal"  but due to the lack of calories he recieves his weight is off the chart and his height is starting to fall off (barely on the chart now).  Apparently this would be common for lack of calroies.  So basically we need to work harder at giving Elliot those calories he is missing.  It's a good to know that it's pretty clear that is the reason why he is so small right now.  I sometimes worried that he would stop growing and there could be something more serious.  So I consider ourselves lucky but feel pretty terrible that we've been slacking on giving him what he needs.... 

So our plan now (given by the dietician) is to stick to a schedule - keep all meals, snacks and drinks at the table and add extra calories whenever possible.  To start we need to feed him more meat (which I have) proud of myself for making the extra effort, he almost finsished 1 chicken tender tonight!  (Thank you - Ian's frozen chicken tender that has no dairy, egg or nuts)  We were also told to add (vegan) butter to crackers or sunbutter and extra canola or olive oil to meals to add the extra calories.  I've noticed that Elliot has been drinking more from his sippy while sitting vs. letting him carry and spill it all over the place.  It's only been a few days but I think we are off to a good start.  Our insurance changes at the begining of the year so we will not be doing a follow up with the dietician because the new insurance won't cover the visit.  She was extremely nice and let us know we could call her or email her to discuss things if we wanted to bounce ideas with her again - which is so awesome!  So we will have a weight check at the Pediatrican office at 20 months and hope Elliot's at least gained 1 lb to know we are back on track.

not the best week

About a a week and a half ago Elliot and I caught colds.  I got over mine pretty quickly but Elliot still had a cough.  Over the weekend it started to get worse and he wasn't himself. 

After a doctor visit Monday she sent us to get an x-ray of his lungs.  The results came back that he had a viral pneumonia so no antibiotics, but they had us bring him back in Tuesday.  Tuesday he was not happy with the doctor or nurse and would cry every time they would walk into the door.  Monday his oxygen level was a little low, but luckily it was fine when we brought him back in.  He was wheezy so the doctor decided to try him out on a nebulizer with albertol.  Elliot was not a fan of this at all but for ten minutes they left us in the room to try our best at keeping the mask on his face.  He cried the whole time!  Once it was done they waited a little bit and we were able to calm him down and he was tired and started to fall asleep.  It seemed like it may have helped- so they did the paperwork so we could get one for home.  The doctor mentioned that because he has eczema & allergies it's likely he could get asthma so it would be a good idea to have one at home.

At home it was a little easier to get him to use it, while in his highchair it worked best without the mask but we still kept it close to him.  Better than not at all, right? 

We went back to the doctor Wednesday and his oxygen levels are still good and in someways she said his lungs are better.  Before one was worse than the other but now they both sound about the same - still junky but in a way that's good.  She said that we should use the nebulizer when we felt like he needed it, instead of every 3-4 hours that we were told to do before.  After reading more about it, we've decided to stop giving it to him. I guess, in some cases it can make it worse and for him it made him hyper and than he would cough more.  Hopefully Elliot will not have asthma so we won't have to use the nebulizer at all.  She said that the cough will probably stick around for a few weeks and it's hard to know when he won't be contagious but usually that would be after his wheezing, stuffiness clears up.

He is a little more playful today, still a little clingy but he's like that from time to time so it's hard to know for sure if it's good or bad.  I really love when he wants to cuddle anyway so hopefully it's just that he wants to take advantage of the fact that I am at home with him instead of working!  I think he's finally getting better I just pray that it will all clear up soon!

Elliot's 1 year checkup

Elliot was not shy once we got to the doctor's office, he made some friends in the waiting room and enjoyed looking at the fish in the fish tank.  He was so good at his appointment, last time he was afraid of Dr. Metcalf but this time he smiled a lot and was only a little concerned once he checked his ears and mouth.  Elliot is about 19 lbs/10th percentile for weight and just over 28 inches/10th percentile for height.  He is a little guy, his head circumference was 25th percentile.  He cried with his shots but shortly after was ready to walk himself out of the office.  He had his Hep-A and chicken pox shot, they held off on the MMR due to his allergy to egg.  We will wait till his visit with the Allergist in October to see if she has the vaccine without egg or if he can go ahead and have the regular vaccine.