OIT Update

Last Tuesday Ruthie and I headed to North Carolina for an OIT updose. This updose was exciting because we are now officially through half of the doses! So since this was a bit of milestone in her OIT journey I thought I'd do an update!

Halfway there! We did 10 doses the first day and when we go back in a month we will be on yellow 2 (blue 6 and yellow 1 are the same dose so we go a month between updoses instead of the normal 2 weeks).

We've gotten into a good routine where on her updose days we drop the big girls at school and head to NC. The drive takes about 2 hours (depending on Charlotte traffic) and Ruthie rocks the drive. I pack her a little bag of things to do and a bag of snacks and she's a pretty happy rider! Once we arrive in Salisbury we have an hour in the office where she gets her dose and then they watch her for a reaction. They have a special room for OIT patients that has coloring, toys, video games and a TV with Netflix. Ruthie usually wants to watch TV because she can pick what she wants to watch without any input from her siblings! Then we grab lunch and drive the 2 hours back and we're back in time for me to pick the big girls up from school. And JP lucks out and gets undivided attention from one of the grandmothers while we're gone!

Ruthie gets to pick where we get lunch after updoses and she almost always picks CFA so she can get ice cream!

Our OIT journey has been going great and the daily dosing has been so much easier than I thought it would be. Ruthie takes her dose every morning after breakfast and then has a 2 hour rest period where she can't get overheated or have an elevated heart rate. Other than that she can do whatever she wants. So we can run errands and she can play in the house (just no running or wresting with JP). I actually drop her off at school each day with about 15 minutes left in her rest period.  And actually, during the week, she spends a big chunk of her rest period in the car while we take the big girls to school.
One thing that has really helped in this whole process is that Ruthie is VERY excited about the process. She has a lot of anxiety about her allergy and we are SO ready to not have to worry about reading labels and being concerned when we eat out about if her food has touched something with peanuts. The big girls got Marble Slab coupons with their report cards but Ruthie can't go to Marble Slab because of cross contamination. Ruthie told the girls that they would just have to go when she wasn't around but was thrilled when I told her that once we finished OIT we could ALL go! She also has a few pieces of candy that she has set aside to eat once she finishes OIT. Also, I recently printed out the schedule at the top of the post and put it on the bulletin board and she loves being able to see where in the process she is!
Our doctor has been PHENOMENIAL. We have his cell phone number and anytime we have a question or a concern we simply text him. He is always so quick to respond. Even the time I got home from work and Ruthie was wheezing so I had to text him at 9pm on a Saturday night while he was on vacation with his family. He got right back to me and we came up with a treatment plan and he had me check in with him the next morning to make a decision about dosing that day. I have been blown away by our doctor's commitment to his patients and to the success of the treatment. His dedication is evident in the big things like availability but also in little things such as when we go for an updose HE gives her the dose and HE checks on her after the first 30 minutes and HE checks her before we leave the office. He could easily pass off any of those steps to an assistant in the office...it's not like he's far away, it's a pretty small office and he's the only doctor. But he takes the time to look at her and talk to her and make sure that everything is ok. We could have gone to a doctor a little closer to us but I had heard some things from other parents that made me a little nervous about the doctor and I am SO glad we chose to drive a little further and go to our doctor.
So that brings me to where we are now. We started out with a liquid with a very low concentration of peanut powder mixed in it. Then we moved to a much more concentrated liquid. This week we moved to capsules of peanut powder that we open up and mix in applesauce. The next change in dosage form is a change to an actual PEANUT! We will gradually increase the amount of peanut powder over the next 2 1/2 months so sometime mid February, if we don't have any bumps in the road, Ruthie will have her first peanut! The idea of that is very exciting and VERY scary. We've spent every day since she was 15mo old protecting her from peanuts and the thought of giving her one to eat is a little terrifying. It's easier with the liquid and the powder because they don't look like a peanut.

Our last updose...peanut powder mixed with applesauce.

Making the decision to start OIT was absolutely terrifying but it has been an absolutely wonderful decision for our family. I am so thankful for all the support we have gotten from friends and family and from our local doctors. Many, many people have been blasted by their non-OIT allergist for even wanting to discuss OIT but our allergist was wonderful and encouraged us to investigate all our options. We would have done OIT no matter how our allergist felt about it but it is so nice to have the support of him and our pediatrician! I am so thankful that we are able to make the trip during the time that the big girls are in school so there is absolutely no disruption to their normal routine. Ruthie loves the alone time with me and JP loves his alone time with whichever grandparent has come to keep him that day.

Fun with Friends!

The Novak Family came from DC to visit us this weekend and we had a great time! They arrived Friday evening around bedtime so the kids played for a few minutes and then we hearded them all off to bed.

The Crew! Paul, JP, Me, Ellie, Caroline, Ruthie, Elizabeth, Emmie, Abby, Ben

Saturday we got up and headed roller skating! The skating rink has skating and they also have a really fun indoor playground. JP and Ruthie started out on the playground and Emmie wanted to skate. And shockingly Ellie wanted to skate too! Ellie was so brave. She skated once a year or two ago and was not a fan and hasn't wanted to try again. Well Saturday she decided that she was going to skate and she did a GREAT job and had so much fun! Ruthie ended up wanting to skate. She started with regular skates but we ended up switching her to the little kid skates and she LOVED it! When we were at skate night for school a few weeks ago JP had said he wanted to skate but I felt like it was too crowded to have him out there so I didn't let him. Well he decided after playing on the playground some on Saturday that he wanted to try skating. He had the little kid skates and did amazing! He had the BEST time too...big grin on his face the whole time he was skating. By about 45 minutes into the skating Elizabeth started to really get the hang of it and I think she had fun and once we got the smaller kid skates for Caroline she had a great time skating with Ruthie (they were pretty inseparable the whole visit). We spent about 2 hours at the skating rink (and the adults skated too!) and everyone had lots of fun!

My brave girl...I was SO proud of her!

Best friends!

Elizabeth and  Emmie

Caroline

Caroline, Ruthie, and JP on the playground!

Paul roller skating!

Still have my skills from 25 years ago!

These girls had a blast!

Pretty much cuteness overload!

We headed home and had lunch and then the kids spent the entire afternoon playing outside. We had lovely weather and they took full advantage of it!
Late afternoon another college friend, Dana, and her husband and kids came over to play and have dinner. Dana has 2 boys so JP was thrilled to have other little boys to play with! We had pizza for dinner and then set up the firepit and had s'mores. The kids had a blast playing together.
After s'mores Dana and her crew headed home and we got the rest of the kids showered and in the bed. They were WORN OUT. I think Ruthie was asleep before I even left the room!

All the kids!

Sunday morning we headed to church and Abby, Ben and the girls headed to Atlanta for the next stop of their trip. We had so much fun with them!

Halloween Fun!

We have been busy having lots of Halloween fun! This year we had a Kitty Cat (Emmie...she was supposed to be Harley Quinn but our order got lost and didn't make it in time.), Unicorn (Ellie..my favorite costume...we used one of Emmie's old dance recital costumes and added a unicorn headband and tail), Elsa (Ruthie), and Spiderman (JP...who at any given moment was telling people he was batman...guess he temporarily got bored with Spiderman).

A few weeks ago we went to the Methodist church near our house to pick out pumpkins. The kids LOVE doing this every year!

JP tried to rake up all their hay lol!

A few days later we decorated said pumpkins. Ellie opted to do a few melting crayon pumpkin and everyone else painted. Ellie's pumpkin turned out really neat but it took FOREVER to melt the crayons.

The Saturday before Halloween we made a quick trip to Summerville to attend a wedding. Earlier in the day Paul's parents took us to see the Scarecrows on the Square. To me it was very similar to homecoming floats but with local businesses and schools. It was really neat and there were lots of really creative ideas!

The Edwards boys...Paul, JP, and Blake

PaPa and GiGi with their little JP Toto

This was my favorite! I'm not sure if you can see it but there is a Mousie!

On the 30th we went to Trick or Treat with the Greeks at USC. The sororities and fraternities have trick or treating and games outside at the Greek Village. It's a fun, free event that we attended for the first time last year and my kids were SO excited about going back this year! We picked up Emma when we got there and met Evelyn and Ainsley down there. We also met up with the Love's at the last minute and trick or treated with them for a bit. (Their little boy Brian Thomas is one of JP's best buddies.)

Brian Thomas, JP, Emma, Emmie, Ellie, Evelyn, Ruthie, Ainsley, Peyton (not pictured: Ella who came later and Lily Paige who was in the stroller)

We had to get a picture of the unicorn and cat tails.

We ran into one of Ruthie's preschool friends, Sloane. Cinderella and Elsa were excited to see each other!

Love these friends so much!

Halloween morning Ruthie had her Halloween party at school. She was VERY concerned about there not being food/cupcakes at the party that she could eat so I told her I would come in and bring her a cupcake to eat in case she couldn't have the one at the party. JP and I loved getting to go hang out in her classroom and JP got to trick or treat with her!

Spiderman (and a few other siblings) was sure he was part of the class!

Halloween night Emma and her mom came over and brought pizza (including a super fabulous pumpkin pizza!) and we ate and then trick or treated in our neighborhood. Paul had to work so he didn't make it home...which means I now have 3 bags of candy sitting in my house that were supposed to be handed out to trick or treaters!

We had SO much fun trick or treating and it was extra fun because JP was really into Halloween this year. 

Funny moment of the night: One of our neighbors had left out a bowl of candy. It was all gone when JP got up there so he just picked up the bowl and walked on. It took me a minute to stop laughing so I could tell him to put the bowl back! I'm still laughing about it today!

JP also latched on to a Hershey's bar about halfway through the neighborhood and refused to put it down. He carried that chocolate bar (still the package fortunately) the rest of the time in his hot sweaty little hand. It was a mushy mess when we got home and fortunately he decided not to eat it last night so we didn't have a massive chocolate mess!

The kids got quite the haul of candy and had a lot of fun!