the allergist

I finally made the call and we took Chloe up to Springs on a Friday. Daniel doesn't have school Fridays and I just took the day off. It happened to be Halloween, a gorgeous fall day. Driving over La Veta pass was soothing. I was pretty nervous. We left Morgan at home.

We got to the office and waited a few minutes. Then the nurse came and took us to a room with a table, several chairs, and a desk. Andrew was a little stir-crazy for being in the car for several hours (and our walk around the block to kill time because we were early didn't take the edge off much) but he had some little cars and he found he could run them along the beam under the table so he stayed busy. Chloe pulled up and toddled all around the room.

The nurse asked us a bunch of questions, to determine what we thought Chloe was allergic to. Then the doc came in. I had picked him because he was a pediatrician specializing in allergies, just what we needed. His partner at the office was on this board and that board, but his biography said he had done this research and that research...he seemed like a very smart doc, and wanted to continue being smart.

He was also around our age and one of the first comments he made was that he had children exactly the ages of ours, three and one, and that when he saw kids like that it made him want to go home and be with his. He put us at ease immediately.

We told him Chloe had had a reaction--hives on her cheeks--from stuffing a handful of Daniel's sunflower seed shells into her mouth. They were sort of under his chair and might also have had dog hair on them. (Can you say "bad parent"?)

We told him about the incident with the yogurt, and the egg/mayo potato salad smear, and the diarrhea after eating semolina noodles. We told him we had a dusty house full of dog and cat hair, which we tried to clean as often as possible, honest we did.

He ordered skin tests for: milk, egg, wheat, peanut, dog, cat, sunflower seed, soy, ragweed, dust, and a couple of others. My mom and sis had had this done but I had never seen it done.

The nurse came in with a tray of indentations, each with a tiny little stick in it. She put blue dots all over Chloe's back. Then she put the sticks in each square made by the dots; some of them she had to poke Chloe.

Chloe was all fine and dandy with what was happening up til that point, even when we took her shirt off, but once the nurse starting pricking her and putting stuff on her back, her face changed. We could tell that suddenly the nurse had gotten on Chloe's bad list and there was nothing she could do to redeem herself. We were sure that as soon as Chloe got big enough, she was going to come back and kick the nurse's butt.

The nurse left and we sang and talked for fifteen minutes while Chloe's back got redder and redder. Then she came back and when she saw Chloe's back she exclaimed, "oh my! It's really red!"

I was confused. I thought nurses weren't supposed to say stuff like that. Anyway, the skin tests showed, graphically, what we already highly suspected: Chloe was violently allergic to milk and had strong reactions to peanut, wheat and egg. She also showed a red reaction to the dog, cat, and ragweed.

The silver lining was that she did not have a reaction to the sunflower or soy.

The doc came in after that and talked to us. He said, get the epi-pen duo packs and don't split them apart. He said, delaying medication for an allergic reaction will put Chloe's life in danger. He said that kids die because they aren't given the epinephrine soon enough.

He told us, keep doing what you're doing, and do it well. He ordered blood tests, to break down the allergens and get specific numbers, and shook our hand, and left.

I don't know what I expected to feel but relieved was not it. Not relieved. I guess I was relieved to have the information, to know for sure, and to be told what to do. He gave us an allergy plan to show Chloe's teachers and family, with instructions on what to do, along with lists as long as my arm on what ingredients with deceptive names that are really milk, egg, and wheat we had to avoid. It included all gluten as well as dairy and dairy and egg derivatives, and of course, peanuts in any form. We weren't to even introduce fish or shellfish til the age of three.

We walked back out into the sunshine, got some food, and headed home. We really didn't feel like hanging around Colorado Springs despite the fact that there were a Home Depot and Target there.

I felt like it was a pretty good day, and Chloe slept most of the way home.