This has been a long time coming and I am so excited that I get to speak a bit about it. Now let me say, at the time of me writing this blog post, I am not fully sure of all the answers but we are almost there. Honestly within the next week, I am guessing we will have some answers. So it is going to be a big week for the Shenk family!!!

Alright let’s start from the beginning. Skylar had a reaction to almond icing that I had made and this is where we started out journey to check if she had food allergies. Well we had her go to the doctor and they took blood for her and then called us a few days later with the results. The thing I always said to people was how confused I was by her diagnosis. She was eating a peanut butter sandwich the day we were called and told she is allergic to peanuts, hazelnuts, almonds, coconuts and sesame seeds. How is it possible to be allergic to something while you’re eating it and have no issues. Right???

Well sadly they diagnosed and let us go. I had to call back and ask if we should keep away from “processed in a tree nut facility” as well or not. Then I also had to bug for an epipen. I always said I liked our previous doctor, just not the office. But ever since we moved to NC, I hate to say, I am realizing how much support we did not get at all when it comes to Sky’s food allergies. We should have been sent to an allergist at the very least. So fast forward to this year.

The kids had their standard doctor check up where I had said to their doctor how I was wondering if we should be seeing an allergist for Sky’s food allergies. It has been a substantial amount of time since the diagnosis, I was not sure if we should try getting her levels checked. Their doctor immediately agreed! She also said that the allergist will most likely raise Sky’s epipen dose but she wanted to let the allergist decide. Off we went this past two weeks with Sky’s allergist.

Trip one included just the getting to know the doctor and the doctor explaining everything to us. Sadly it was at this point that I explained the PB sandwich story and the doctor just had this sense of “I wondered.” She flat out asked “has she actually reacted to any of her food allergies?” To which I responded with “she has for coconut and almond but nothing else.” The doctor said “I am pretty sure she had a false positive because if she didn’t react and was eating it, then she would not be allergic to that food. But now since you haven’t given her any for a while, she could possibly have developed an allergy. So don’t change anything until we get a fully game plan.” Y’all we have spent 7 years avoiding 3 foods that Sky could have kept in her diet. So we get into game plan mode. At this point we decide to do the standard skin prick tests and blood work too. You see, we can be allergic by touch and by ingestion. So two different forms of allergic reaction. The blood work would help us find out about the ingestion levels and we can go from there.

Now fast forward to this past week and the actual allergy test. We go in and Sky gets changed and lays right down. At this point I warned everyone last visit and then start repeating the warnings this visit.  Sky does not do well with all the blood being taken from her. Her body can not handle it. It’s not that she gets worked up at all, its just too much blood taken from her. Everyone’s like “oh she will be fine!” Well I went prepared for this visit. I wasn’t playing any games on Sky’s health. She plugged into an audiobook and laid down for the back pricks. She did so good during that. Then we had a 15 minute wait. During this time, she started to itch so bad and was struggling. So we both crack jokes and act up. Our room was so freaking loud with laughter. It was all I could do to get this kid to remain calm and not thinking about the itch. Then the doctor comes in and looks at her back. That is when we find out her seasonal allergies, dust mite allergy and cockroach allergy. Ok we can handle those. But its the smile on her doctors face that has me on my toes. She goes “1 is peanuts, 4 is sesame seeds,  this line is tree nuts. She didn’t react to any of them. Now that doesn’t mean we change anything yet. But I have high hopes right now.” So we are like secretly freaking out. This means Sky can come in contact with all of these possible allergies. But we still need to get the blood work done to see if she can ingest them as well.

This is when things go down hill some. The nurse to take Skys blood work comes in and I have Sky looking away from it all. Sky jumps so bad when the lady pokes her but my hand is in place to keep her head away from the view and continue to focus her on breathing and anything other than the blood leaving her. The nurse that I warned to start comes in and starts talking to me but stops when she realizes that I was not focusing on her but Sky. Once Sky’s done with the blood draw, I give my attention to the nurse. She starts going over what the doctor said and thats when I see it. Sky gives the smallest head nod and instantly I knew. I said “whats wrong Sky?” She goes “ I don’t….” That’s all she needed to say and I went running. I grab her head and say “lay down.” At which she starts trying to move her body and I jump in and help her to get on the table. I then tell her to stay down and rush to my bag to grab a trash bag and mint. I find those, run back to her and say “open your mouth. Eat the mint and calm down. Focus on your audiobook.” At this point the nurse finally unfreezes and goes “oh, I’ll grab the trash can.” I said to Sky “what’s going on?” She said “I felt sick.” I said “ok, well you lay there and we will stay for as long as you need.” The nurse at this point heads out of the room and we take our time to get Sky to feel better. When she finally has some color back I asked again “what were you feeling?” She said “My head felt funny, then I felt sick, I got really hot and I just didn’t like how I felt.” I said “ok, you got very close to passing out. I had a feeling this may have been the outcome but just stay laying until you are ready.” She goes “mom, is that how you feel?!?!” I shook my head. She said “I don’t want to do that again!!!’ I said “well I think we are almost in the clear with your allergies so we may be able to not worry about this soon!”

After about 20 minutes, we get her up and moving out of the doctors. She looked horrible in the car. But we get her home and she gets to chill in my bed with tv time. That was exactly what she needed in this moment! So at the current moment we are waiting to see what her levels are and if she is good we will do controlled introductions with her doctor. Then at some point we will be able to do said therapies at home too. This means we are so close to being able to bring back food that Sky loves without concern. She hasn’t had a Chinese food date with her dad in 7 years and it is long over due for these two. But in my mom eyes, knowing she may be able to actually have less panic in her life, it genuinely makes me teary eyed. I am so hopeful that she has one less concern soon!!!

We will update you all when we get the answers ourselves. I am not sure when we will but I believe within the next week we should get more answers. Now we still need to do controlled introduction and make a game plan but we are soon going to have those answers!!!