Hocus Pocus....

Ok, so you could say that I'm a little more than excited about the thought that I found someone who most likely will be able to help our little girl overcome her allergies for good!!! Whether or not you believe in holistic doctors, I've seen proof that this treatment works, I've met several people that have done it or put their young children through it and had awesome results. I first heard about it when a friend purposely introduced her friend to me. This girl could not eat anything and was a skinny rail.. but she went through treatments and can now eat anything she wants. However, at that time I was not aware of any doctors, locally, that were trained in that area of expertise and not at all excited about driving to Spokane every few weeks for an appointment. I found out last week that there's a local doctor trained in NAET (http://www.naet.com/ - check it out for yourself...intersting stuff!).

Unfortuantely our insurance doesn't cover the cost of seeing a "hocus pocus" doctor, so we have to foot this bill on our own. I found the email address of the clinic in Richland and questioned them about costs since Mich and I already knew that we want to do this, but don't have it in the budget yet to do so. I was so happy to learn that costs of each treatment, after the initial appointment, are only $30 for her age!! Granted, there could be between 10 and 45 treatments depending on the allergies & severity, but it's all done on our timeline.

(picture - Audree wearing a dress my grandparents brought from Hawaii for me when I was little.)

Daddy's nervous....

IT'S A GIRL!!!

18 weeks or 17.2 weeks?

We had another prenatal appointment and now I'm confused.. I have two different due dates... 6 days apart, but I'm sticking with the one I've been going with all along Feb 21st. Audree got to hear Jelly Bean's heart beat again... she thought that was cool. It was also time for blood work....icky... and to schedule the ultrasound, which is this week... the nurse suggested I wait until my next appointment and do it all in the same day... 4 weeks from now.... but I told her NO WAY!! :-)

Audree is finally appearing to be over her cold & sinus infection...thank goodness I got her into the doctor or it could have gone on for several more weeks. She's been a busy girl and undoing some of the housework and organizing that mommy has done lately. It's fun though, she's trying so hard to help when she can and she loves to vacuum. (Pic on right- Audree trying to help organize the empty boxes)

I got back in touch with the company I was doing general transcription for and let them know I could start working again, but only about 1/2 of the amount of work I was doing before. I did some work already, but now they're back to bugging me about working more that I am able to. I have another possible option out there as an independent contractor doing Internet research that will give me the flexibility I want and need, we'll see how it pans out. I'm currently waiting for an invitation to take their tests.

ADA..

I'm a little slow at reading some of my emails, but saw that the ADA Amendment Act has been passed and is currently waiting for the president to sign into law. YAH! For those that don't know, the ADA protects Audree from harassment and discrimination due to her asthma & allergies.

Hopefully we'll not have to worry about putting her in public or private school, but this protects her in her schooling environment, that they must make it a safe place for her unless it causes undue burden. Even something as simple as us going out to eat, they cannot discriminate against her because she cannot eat the foods they prepare.

I never thought about the asthma & allergies being a disability, but by definition a disability is a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, or is regarded as having such impairments. Breathing, eating, working and going to school are considered major life activities"

For a little more information... you can read the link below
http://www.aafa.org/display.cfm?id=9&sub=19&cont=255

My Wishlist...

I have been putting together my wish list for baby... and as it comes down to it, because baby is coming and we are moving Audree into her own big girl room and having to completely remodel the room, we really need more for Audree than for baby. I have more work to do on the wish list, but if you wanna see it, let me know.

Busy.. busy... busy...

Sorry, some of my links and so on have disappeared from the blog lately. I was attempting to make some changes to personalize the blog a little more and in the midst of the changes, the program deleted my stuff. I'll get them all back eventually, but it takes time since this is the only place I had some of them saved and as you can tell, I don't get to spend much time updating the blog lately.


We've been keeping busy. Yesterday was Mich's 32nd birthday. We had a little family celebration at our house..though almost had to call the fire department there were so many candles on that little cake. :-) I was determined to find a completely Audree-friendly cake and thanks to a wonderful idea from my mom, not only was it Audree-friendly, but very yummy and looked good too!

We spent last weekend with Amy's parents & sister's family camping in boardman. Unfortunately this was only our 2nd and last camping trip this year..maybe we'll get to go a little more next year. We had a blast, but I think we might rethink camping in Boardman again. The campground is really nice, the stench of the nearby dairy farm was gross!!

We entertained quite a few neighbor campers with our glow-stick wars... we had probably 200 of those 8" glow stick bracelets going back and forth for about an hour after dark. I'm sure it was hilarious! It was guys against girls, though Audree wasn't sure what team she wanted to be on. We've already started discussing our glow-stick stock for next year.

Baby Jelly Bean is growing in leaps and bounds. I have been feeling movement for a couple of weeks now, it feels more like being tickled than kicked, which is nice. We have our 18 wk appointment next week and at that time I will schedule blood tests to make sure all is good with me and my big ultrasound to make sure all is good with baby.

Audree is also growing in leaps and bounds! Her vocabulary and ability to enunciate words is growing so fast, it's hard to keep up. It's fun to say words just to see how she'll repeat them. She has a couple of new favorite characters, since we got rid of our dish, she now watches PBS and loves watching Curious George and Clifford the Big Red Dog. We're also working on getting her adjusted to a few changes before baby comes... new bed, new room & potty training. For right now I've taken the crib rail off her bed & installed the toddler rail. She's loving her big girl bed and stays in bed until someone says she can get out...I'm waiting for that to change. We do have a bed on the way, but need sanded, painted and have to buy a new mattress first.

Our poor little girl has been sick for about two weeks now. I got her into see the pediatrician last week. He gave her some meds to calm down her asthma, which helped tremendously, and had her tested for RSV. Thankfully the RSV test came back negative. Due to our inability to control her asthma & the number of attacks she's had recently, I also made an appointment with the allergist, which we saw today. I was impressed by the Dr. and while there, he did a test and determined that she is allergic to dust mites (icky!!)

I also discussed the possibility of more allergy tests with the Dr. today to find out where we stand with the current allergies, test for airborne allergens and see if anything else has crept up on us that we are not aware of, since she eats almost everything that we do now. He agreed that might be a good idea, since her last test only consisted of those items that she tested positive for at 6 months and she is now almost 2 years. He recommended that we do those tests in November, which will be about 6 months from her last test.

Bye Bye iight!!

It's not uncommon for a pregnant woman to have to get up to use the restroom in the middle of the night, but it's usually pretty uneventful and you go right back to sleep..... not last night! Bad me, I turned on the light to see where I was going and the next thing I knew I heard it crackling, saw smoke, sparks and a small flame or two. That'll wake you up in a hurry! I'm pretty sure the light is original equipment that was installed when the house was built 30 yrs ago. Don't worry, no serious damage done, just a small dark spot on the ceiling that'll be covered by a new light. I'm sure glad Michael knows a thing or two about electrical stuff. :) He removed the light fixture and disconnected the wires from the switch until he returns home from work today. He's going to have to run new wires because the old ones are very brittle.

Audree went to her first fair last week. She loved the carousel & the animals. In fact,when it was time to get off the carousel, she got very upset, she wanted to keep going. Maybe next year. :-) She'll be big enough to go on some of the other rides with her cousins next year instead of just watching.

Audree has changed so much lately and becoming such a big girl. She is now realizing that she's tired and wants to sleep when it's either nap time or bedtime. She'll tell you "Audee sleepy" or "eyes sleepy" (no, I didn't misspell Audree... she calls herself Audee). We left the fair quite late last week and as she rarely will fall asleep in the car, all the way home we heard, "mommy, Audee sleepy", "eyes sleepy", "daddy sleepy." We hear Audee this or Audee that all the time now, it's so cute to see how she puts things together. No full sentences yet, but she's putting lots of different thoughts together. Don't ask me how many words she knows now.. it's too many to remember them all. :-)

I haven't had a chance to run out and take pictures of the backyard yet, but it has come a LONG way, a lot of work & sweat went into that space and looks very nice. We were able to have a nice birthday party outside a couple of weeks ago, though we were on Arkansas blue grass instead of Kentucky Blue grass... (LOL.... we put blue tarps over the dirt to try to keep the dirt outside). There's still a little work to be done before winter hits. The ground has been given a chance to settle a bit and Mich has realized he needs to get a little more dirt there to level things out before he plants grass in September/October.

Baby Jelly Bean is still doing good, we're at 14.5 weeks right now and everything right on target. I will be able to schedule my ultrasound at my next appointment. I'm hoping the hospital has upgraded their ultrasound equipment so I can have the new 3d/4d pictures of the baby..that would be really neat! :)

Nominate Find a Cure

Baby!

We've started taking pictures of the baby belly (this is a 12 week picture). The baby is really not that big yet, might be about 2.5 inches from crown to rump (that's an over-guestimate), but everything else around him/her is growing to accommodate little jelly bean. I skipped the frumpy stage and went straight to looking pregnant this time. We're almost at the 3 month point.. time sure flies when you're having fun!

I hope I didn't scare anyone with my post about Audree's allergies. It just started to bother me that too many people Audree spends time with kind of blow it off as if it's no big deal and they stop being careful. It's really not that big of deal as long as you are always careful. We don't want anything to happen to our sweet baby girl, I know everyone can understand that. :-)

Nice Tree...

As you've probably figured out, we've been quite busy. We just got back from a weekend of camping with friends and family. It was nice to be away and a lot of fun, but there was too much driving back and forth and wore us all out. Audree loved being able to run all over the place... she even got brave with the puppies and was playing fetch with one of them. She usually goes nuts when she sees dogs/puppies, but won't go near them.

She's really getting to be a big girl. Probably the most polite toddler I know right now. If she wants something, she'll say "more please thank you" all in the same breath. Sometimes it takes a bit to figure out what she wants, but she's very polite when asking. She's been repeating everything lately... even down to "ummm" or "huh." We're trying to be very careful not to use those and other similar sounds and words... it took our little mirror to show us how much we actually use them.

Things with baby Jellybean are good. At my last appointment we were able to hear baby's heartbeat, which was good and strong. Dr. said everything looked really good and was right on target. We're at about 11.5 weeks right now, going fast! We're over 1/4 of the way there and so close to 2nd trimester... I'm looking forward to that. I've been lucky to have avoided getting sick, but have had no energy. I have another appointment scheduled in the middle of the month, but I think that's the dreaded one with blood tests.. icky!

Mich is staying really busy. He's been working a lot of overtime lately, up to 70 hr weeks so far and then he comes home and works on the yard until it gets dark. It's starting to look really good though and the sprinklers are all working. Unfortunately there's a big section that won't have grass for a while, but there are no more weeds and the big hole in the back yard is filling in nicely, waiting for it to settle a bit to make sure it's all flat and level. Mich will put down grass seed in about a month when it starts to cool down outside and we should have grass next year.

Amy's mom & sister came over a couple weeks ago and we planted a nice (big) garden in the backyard. It'll be great when everything really starts to grow and fill it in. There's lots of flowers and plants with different colors and textures...it's really nice. :)

On another note...

There's something that I've been wanting to share for a while as some individuals that we spend time with pass off something that we deal with every day with Audree as not a big deal and that is her allergies. If you don't already know, Audree is allergic to dairy, all nuts, wheat, soy, rye, barley, oats, strawberries and eggs. She also cannot handle a lot of skin care products as her skin is very sensitive, especially to fragrances and has had multiple asthma attacks over the past several months. Yes, I know, it can sound scary and it is if not handled properly, that is why mommy is constantly reminding everyone about it and asking them to wash their hands or not kiss her after eating and will not allow Audree out of my sight when there's un-safe food around.

We do not yet know how severe her reactions to eggs and nuts are, and hopefully will not have to find out, but have seen (multiple times) reactions to dairy, and a couple of severe reactions. That does not mean just milk... but ALL forms of dairy... cheese, anything cooked with cheese or other forms of milk, anything that has touched something with dairy (i.e. a spoon), etc. I cannot kiss her several hours after having something with milk in it, she will break out in hives as it stays on your lips and in your saliva for quite a while. Audree has been diagnosed with anaphylaxis to dairy. For those that do not know what anaphylaxis is.... here's a short textbook definition...

Anaphylaxis is a severe and potentially life-threatening allergic reaction. Common triggers of anaphylaxis include foods, certain medications, insect venoms and latex. Your immune system produces antibodies that defend against foreign substances, including allergens. When antibodies attach to these foreign substances, they may release chemicals that can cause allergy signs and symptoms such as watery eyes and a runny nose. Anaphylaxis occurs when your immune system severely reacts to an allergen. The flood of chemicals released in your body during anaphylaxis makes your blood pressure drop suddenly and your bronchial tubes narrow, causing difficulty breathing or even unconsciousness and death. You may have an anaphylactic response within seconds or minutes of exposure to an allergen such as the venom from a bee sting or an ingested peanut or even touching the item.

About a month ago I was at the park with friends, playing in the water and we heard an ambulance fairly close by but didn't pay too much attention. A couple hours later I got an email from my local allergy support group and found out it was for one of the children in that group. He and his mommy were also at the park with their friends, having lunch and playing. After lunch the little boys decided to play tag. While running around one of the boys accidentally touched the other boys lip with his fingers when going for his chest to tag him. Immediately the little boy that got tagged started to react to something on the other boy's hands. He'd had Doritos for lunch and still had some cheese residue on his fingers and underneath his fingernails. This little guy was also diagnosed with anaphylaxis to milk. Instead of waiting to see if he'd react, mommy gave him a shot of epinephrine and called 911 immediately. Thankfully she did or he would have never survived, on the way to the hospital he went into anaphylactic shock from that tiny little bit of cheese and had to be revived by the paramedics.

I don't want to scare anyone and am not trying to exclude ourselves from everything, but I need everyone to be aware that it is very real. We hope and pray every day that Audree will grow out of her allergies and doing what we can to help her stay away from them so that she has that chance-- along with a lot of research on things we can do to assist her immune system in that. All I ask is that you wash your hands and please don't bring any form of dairy, nuts or eggs into our home.