Doctors. Doctors, and more Doctors

Today we finished up a whirlwind of two days and three doctor's appointments. Two of those appointments were long and involved lots of discussion. My brain is tired.

Paul's parents came and kept the little girls for day #1 of appointments and that was so, so helpful!

The first appointment was my easy one. It was my 16 week ob appointment. My appointment was at 940. I got there a few minutes early and was walking out at 943. That's my kind of appointment!

The second appointment was that afternoon and was Emmie's follow up with the ENT. For those of you who haven't heard the saga I'll give you the cliff notes version. Back in January Emmie failed a hearing screen at school. She didn't hear anything out of her left ear and failed a few of the frequencies on her right ear. The pediatrician didn't see any fluid in her ear but the ENT later told us that was probably because she had so much fluid in her ear that there wasn't a fluid/air line. After a horrible time getting our referral stuff straightened out we had an appointment 6 weeks later with the ENT. They rescreened her hearing and it had improved but she had some fluid in her ears still and had negative pressure which is indicative if enlarged adenoids which we pretty much knew she had because she's such a loud mouth breather! We did nasal steroids for 6 weeks in an attempt to shrink her adenoids and followed back up yesterday. We saw the audiologist right when we got there and her hearing had improved even more but her negative pressure was even worse. After waiting an hour and a half we FINALLY saw he doctor. (I was so glad that the little girls were at home!) The ENT took a peek at her adenoids in the office and said she had 90% blockage from the adenoids so they definitely have to come out and he'll put tubes in at the same time. We're waiting for a call from the scheduler but we'll probably do it in late May or early June. 

Today we finished up our appointments with a visit to the allergist for Ruthie. The big girls have been begging to stay at extended care at school so they were super excited to do that while we were at the doctor's office. The trigger for our visit was a possible peanut allergy. Ruthie had gotten hives on her hand and arm and a rash around her mouth when she had peanut butter and while I was pretty sure that it was just a skin sensitivity to the oils I didn't want to take a chance with a possible peanut allergy. After a much smoother referral process we only had to wait a week to see the allergist. After a long appointment of giving the allergist lots of background info I think he was also pretty convinced it was just a skin reaction. 

They had great toys in the exam room!

He wanted us to come back and do a skin and blood test just to be sure but since I had made arrangements for the big girls and had kept Ruthie off her Zyrtec prior to the appointment (thanks to a heads up from my friend Kim!) he said we could go ahead and do the testing. The skin test very quickly showed that she definitely has a peanut allergy (a significant response for a school age child is a hive measuring 8 and for babies it's less than that and Ruthie's was a 9 at 15 months). So we left with a prescription for an epi pen and instructions to rid our house of peanut butter (a very sad day for the big girls and even sadder day for Franklin). 

The peanut reaction is at the bottom of the screen and at the top is the histamine which is the control so it is supposed to react. You can see her book underneath her arm...Pout Pout Fish is one of Ruthie's favorite books right now and we probably read it 20 times while we were doing the skin test...it was a great distraction as I had to keep her from scratching her arm.

We slid in at the lab 15 minutes before they closed for lunch and got Ruthie's blood drawn. He said we would watch her blood work over the years and if it started to look like she wasn't allergic anymore then we would do a challenge in the office. Apparently about 20% of children outgrow their peanut allergy. Ruthie was such a trooper and the only time she cried was when they drew the blood. She was quite the big girl when they did her skin test! This diagnosis will definitely mean a big change for our family as we all LOVE peanut butter. Fortunately Ruthie can have other nut butters and I've heard sunflower butter is another good alternative. We will also have to start reading labels and be very diligent about taking her epi pen with us when we go anywhere where there is food.

It has been a crazy 2 days but hopefully we are done with doctor's appointments until next month when I have my 20 week ultrasound...yay!