Update on appointments 4 & 5

Ok, so clearing Audree's allergies is not as easy as it has been for most people and is going to take a little more work than we hoped. I mentioned the results of our egg challenge to the gal and she said it was rare to need to go as far as we are with egg, but it's still very doable. She had one case before that is similar to Audrees, but I think her problem was with milk. It ended up being a combination of grass and milk... of course cows eat grass!

Instead of trying to figure out the eggs right now.. or milk... she said the best thing to do is strengthen Audree's immune system first and then go back and check the foods. Today we did treatments for vitamin B complex and vitamin C. Next week will probably be sugars and iron. She said by the way things are going, Audree's system appears to be very sensitive.

We may not be able to have that special birthday cake for her this year that I was really hoping for as her birthday is in a month, but I will be counting on it for next year!

No eggs :-(

Just an update..... We challenged eggs this last weekend and they failed again. A little frustrating, but now I have more questions. We'll see how her appointments on Friday go.

Appointments #2

We ended up with 2 appointments this morning instead of just one. Audree was rechecked to see if being cleared for eggs held and it did! However we brought up the fact that her skin broke out when we touched them to her face, but had no problems when we put it on her tongue. So she checked eggs with skin and eggs with all her organs, especially her digestive tract. Her organs were fine at accepting the eggs, but skin was another story. So she did a combination treatment and did inflammation/skin/eggs. Sounds weird, I know, but it's how they do it. I am to re-challenge eggs this weekend, same as before, scrambled eggs on her skin and her tongue, if all looks good, since Audree has never seen an egg before and will most likely push it away, I'll make some cookies or other baked good with eggs in it instead of an egg replacer. I'm excited to try it!

Half an hour later we went in and had her rechecked to see if the egg treatment held, and of course it did. The 2nd round is calcium...in this round we are working on clearing her dairy allergy. Hallelujah! This is the one that always scares me the most for her to be around. It might take more than one visit as eggs did, but it might not. We'll see... I'm not going to challenge this one on my own though... I will most likely wait until her blood tests are done in a couple weeks as anaphlyaxis is nothing to mess around with.

First NAET appointment

We had our first appointment today. She did some basic muscle testing through use of a "surrogate"... me. She only tested a few things to start with...very basic nutrients- egg, vitamin c, calcium, B complex and sugars.. but they all came up as problematic. Instead of treating the individual foods, they start with nutrients and work from there since that usually clears up the food problems. Then if the foods are still problems, they work on the individual foods. What the tests showed was that Audree has problems absorbing and digesting these nutrients. There are many, many more, and they start off by treating 10 basic nutrients, but these were just what she worked with today.

Egg is self explanatory--- vitamin c - this could be her problem with strawberries----calcium- dairy of course, oats, etc--- B Vitamin complex- grains (wheat, rye, barley, oat), soy-----sugar is self explanatory also.

Today she worked on clearing Audree's egg allergy...now it could take more than one treatment as her last blood test indicated she could be in the anaphylactic range with eggs or there could be a nutrient in eggs that she has problems with. I attempted to give her some scrambled eggs during dinner... of course my picky 2yr old wouldn't put it in her mouth since eggs are totally foreign to her, she's never had them. I put some on her skin, then tried to at least get it on her tongue. She had a slight outward reaction, her skin got a little red and swelled at the site, but her tongue did not. That appeared promising.

We'll see what happens... we are going back for another appointment on Friday and I will mention this to her. I'll give it a fair shot and see how her actual blood test goes at the beginning of November when we see the allergist again. If the blood test proves that her allergies are being eliminated and lessened, we'll keep going. I would love to make a birthday cake with wheat and eggs this year! :-)

If you're curious about NAET.. here's a website that explains what heppens. Sounds totally weird... I know....but I've heard wonderful success stories. :0) http://cherokeethc.com/naet.html

Totally amazed!!

Now that we know for sure that baby Jelly Bean is a girl, I got the itch to go through all the clothes we've had for Audree (I've kept everything) and organize them by size. I am totally amazed that someone so small and so young could have sooooo many clothes and I don't think Mich & I bought even 1/4 of them! We are very blessed. Most of them I remember, some I do not, maybe because there were some we recieved after she outgrew them ... but I can say that the new baby definitely doesn't need any clothes! :-)

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.