Food Allergies and Early Childhood Therapy | Life in Both Worlds
It’s been almost a week since Andrew and I were down in Florida, enjoying the warm sun, sand, and the company of our bloggers friends. Ever since we got back, my mind and body feel like they are in slow motion. My mind just keeps going, even at night, and because there are so many things to catch up I’m having a hard time collecting my thoughts to get started.
This is why so many people say “I need a vacation from my vacation”.
We have a lot to prepare for and a lot going on right now.
Andrew is our food allergy baby. At 1, he was allergic to milk, egg, peanut and tree nut. Every year since then, we have taken Andrew in for a repeat blood test to see if his allergy levels have dropped.
Imagine our excitement when last year, at the age of 4, his peanut allergy level dropped nearly in half. While he is still highly allergic, it’s left us hopeful that one day he might outgrow this life threatening disease.
We are at that time of year again, two weeks ago we took Andrew in for his repeat test and just received a call back yesterday. My stomach was in knots as the phone rang, I saw the phone number and quickly picked up the call. The nurse started out with, well things haven’t changed much, and my stomach dropped. But then she went into details and began to read off his testing numbers for the milk and egg allergy that Andrew has already outgrown. They tested for the wrong thing!
Yesterday, my poor baby and I had to return to the lab for another work up. The day we thought there might be good news, turned into bad news for my son. We quickly got in and out, and now we wait. I can’t stand this part.
Tomorrow, we start a new journey with Andrea. She has been in the First Steps early childhood program since the age of 2, and unfortunately this program only goes through to the age of 3. While Andrea has made great strides, we still have a long road ahead of us.
To continue with therapy, at the age of 3, Andrea would need to transition into the early childhood program through our school district. Unfortunately, for us, we have to go through the entire process of testing, evaluations, to see where Andrea’s progress is being made and where she still needs help. Andrea has to qualify to be in their program, and we need this more than ever for her.
Tomorrow, we start the first test that has to be done for her evaluation. A therapist is coming to our home to watch Andrea in her natural environment and to watch her during therapy. I’m really hoping that all goes well, and we can give her the help that she needs.
If you missed my previous post about Andrea and her therapy, you can see that here.
I’m aching to tell you all about Florida and to show my pictures, hopefully tomorrow will go smoothly and things can get caught up a little bit.
Sometimes, I just have to tell myself to take a deep breath.
Hi Christine,
Her therapist is confident she will be let into the program but it’s the drawn out process of testing that is hard. We have to go through 3 rounds of testing, the first one came here for an “in home” study, next week we have to go into the office for a test with another person and not sure what the other one entails. Thank you for your input :) It’s so involved with the testing, just makes it hard to go through the waiting game.
I am sorry your son had to rego through a blood draw. Those can be so hard for little kids. But as far as you daughter goes, your regular therapist should be able to give you an idea of whether or not she is going to get into the program. We went through this with our youngest son this past year. He started in the Early on intervention program at 20 months. He is now 3 1/2 and transitioned to the ECDD room at our local school. Our speech and occupation therapist were able to tell us a few weeks before testing whether they though he would get in or not. Up here in the UP of Michigan, in order to not go in he would have needed to be following 2 and 3 step directions, ability to identify 10 shapes, colors, letters, body parts, etc., and the ability to identify object (like give me the car when you have a car, ball, and stuffed toy in front of you). I hope you have good luck and if Andrea gets into the program you will be just amazed how much can change when they are learning with other children.
Thanks LeeAnn! Our allergist gave him a 20% chance of outgrowing it, apparently if their numbers start to drop before the age of 5 they have a greater chance. I think the yearly thing is more of a peace of mind for me, he really would be have been okay with every couple of years. But when I saw his numbers drop from a 40 to a 25, it gave me a renewed outlook that everything could get better.
The first part of testing went well today for Andrea, so glad! Now it’s a waiting game until we meet with the next therapist for the rest of her evaluation.
I appreciate your comment! :)
Apparently I need to get a new allergist. My daughter has a life-threatening tree nut allergy, and during our first visit to the allergist (after her anaphylactic reaction to eating a cashew), he said that only 7% of kids grow out of nut allergies. He has never mentioned re-testing her. He said that when she was 8 years old that he would try desensitizing her. That’s it.
I’m sorry they tested your son for the wrong things, and that he had to go through the blood draw again. I know how horrible that can be.
I also wish you luck in going through all of the evaluations for your daughter. It is good that there are programs out there that will help, but it sucks that you have to jump through so many hoops to get into those programs.
Hang in there Amanda. We went on vacation a MONTH ago, and I’m still not caught up. I posted about one day of our cruise, and the rest of the posts are just sitting there in my drafts with nothing written. I’m hoping I don’t forget everything before I get around to writing it!