David, Lisa, Kayla & Isaac

This has been an exciting year for us. Watching Kayla grow is an amazing journey! Each stage she hits makes us appreciate and enjoy her even more. She is an extremely active little girl and keeps us on our toes! But she is such a happy, loving, affectionate and curious child that it is such a joy to be her parents.

David continues to work at Rapidparts and I continue to stay home full time with Kayla; both jobs which we enjoy. We had the opportunity to make several trips this year, including Orlando, North Carolina and Boston and found time to relax and enjoy time with our families.

This year for Christmas we traveled out East again and will spend 2 weeks with family. We flew into Boston in between snow storms and will drive to Delaware the day after Christmas for several days. We are so blessed to have loving and supportive families and we truly enjoy spending the holidays with them. We hope you have enjoyed a wonderful Christmas day with loved ones.

Posted by Lisa at 02:17 PM | Permalink

For David's birthday this year we went to a Celtics game and sat in a luxury box! To make a long story short, one of my dad's old soccer players gave him and his soccer team tickets to the game, and both David and I tagged along! It was a really fun game (that they won) and now the Celtics have the best start to their season ever! We enjoyed TONS of great food in the box, including clam chowder, enormous shrimp, pizza, chicken fingers, creme brulee, cookies, nacho's and more! It was quite a treat!

Posted by Lisa at 03:07 PM | Permalink

We've gotten a lot of snow lately and took Kayla to play outside in it for the first time this weekend! She loves to look at it from inside and touch it when we hand her a snowball. She wasn't sure about walking in it at first! Who can blame her, since it comes up above her knees! But she had fun in the end!!

Posted by Lisa at 11:35 PM | Permalink

So... the results are in. Kayla is allergic to like everything! :)

cashews - high
pistachio's - high
egg whites - high
milk (cow) - high
soybeans - high
peanuts - high
wheat - high
pecans - low
walnuts - low
fish (cod) - low

Thank goodness she isn't highly allergic to cod because man, wouldn't that be a major change in lifestyle?! :)

The confusing thing is that the doctor doesn't seem very concerned by this at all! After like 3 or 4 calls to the Dr's office yesterday, I am freaking out a bit less. We have an appointment with him (although not until February!), but basically we don't need to make any major changes at this point in her diet. Aside from the fact that we need to avoid nuts, peanut butter and obvious things that might have traces of peanut in it (things like plain M&M's), as long as she's eaten things in the past with no allergic reaction, then we are ok to feed them to her now (at least until we talk with her Dr and get more clarity). Although, there was a request to keep Benadryl near by at all times :) At least now we are armed with the knowledge that she MIGHT have an allergic reaction eating some of these foods. After talking with the nurse, who talked to the doctor again after my first several calls, she reiterated the fact that our Dr is NOT at all concerned with the test results, and said to take them with a grain of salt (basically). He said that he doesn't typically like to order these blood tests (which is true, he did up front say that we could do these tests if we wanted to, but he wasn't making it mandatory or anything). Apparently his thought is that they aren't always accurate, especially in cases with small children. So.... I'm a bit in-between being totally crazy paranoid that Kayla is going to die if she looks at nuts or milk or whatever.... and then not being concerned at all! My gut tells me not to be too concerned. She's been eating wheat for like 10 months, cow's milk for several months now, and we've never had a problem to any of those things, nor with things with egg white in it (aside from the fact that she doesn't like eggs at all!). And nuts! She's eaten nuts for the last several months, in moderation of course, but has been fine, fine, fine! Ugh.

So, I'm trying to take things in stride. If the Dr isn't concerned, then I shouldn't be either. I just don't really fully understand how the Dr can't be concerned with the results being the way that they are, you know?! In some ways, I'm glad that he isn't telling me to drastically change anything right now, since I have to say that I struggle with believing the test results.

I'm still just in the beginning stages of processing all of this info. This week has been so exhausting dealing with a sick and very needy child (even after she's been done puking she's been needing to be held constantly!), and add to that the stress of leaving this weekend and this whole allergy issue... well, it has left me emotionally, physically and mentally exhausted! I'm SO ready for a break, and thankfully we leave tomorrow and will get one (that is, assuming our flights go well, which with us is not likely!!!!).

Thanks everyone for all your concern and prayers. I'll be sure to update if anything else happens, or if I think of something else... and then of course when we have the meeting with the Dr in Feb.

Posted by Lisa at 12:56 PM | Permalink

So.... I'll try not to be too dramatic, but I'm bummed. This weekend Kayla came down with what I'm assuming is the flu. She didn’t wake up on Sunday until 9:45 (that should have been my first clue!) and she had puke on her mattress and was dry-heaving when I picked her up. She threw up multiple times on Sunday and was quite needy (and David was gone hunting most of the day). But Monday was worse. Much worse. She had puked in her sleep multiple times when I got her in the morning, and was just pathetic all day long. PA-thetic. Like, needed to be held all day long, couldn't keep down water but was constantly asking for it, slept on and off all day long, etc. She finally started to hold down Pedialyte in the afternoon and we thought we were on the other side of it. But then threw up again about 6:30. I went to bed with a sad heart. It is so hard to watch her suffer and not really be able to help or make her understand. However, today is a new day. She woke up without puke on her mattress and has held down the little food and drink she's been given, thankfully. She is still rather needy and lethargic, but also will leave my lap to grab a book for us to read, or to play with her toys on her own a little bit. She keeps saying "more" but with no context, so I have no idea what she wants more of! I think it's rather frustrating for the 2 of us! But at least I’m not doing constant laundry. Seriously, when you and she are going through multiple outfits a day, plus sheets, plus towels…. That creates an awful lot of laundry!

I don't even know what the insult to injury is..... The fact that she got sick shortly after being sick and while David was gone, none-the-less.... or the fact that now that she is getting better I've heard bad results from the blood tests. She tested positive to both groups.... so they have ordered further tests on the blood to test for each item specifically. We'll get results in 48 hours. I am rather overwhelmed with the circumstances. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am. I was kinda hoping that her reaction was a fluke (although, that would really stink to not know and wonder when something like that would happen again). But no matter what the new results show, she is for sure going to be allergic to some type of nut, if not more than one. And that possibly means a large change in lifestyle. I’m trying to not get worked up or worry about those kinds of details until we get the more specific test results…. but it’s not really working. I’m really bummed. After several exhausting days this bad news is hitting me hard. To put it in perspective, things could be a lot worse. It’s not like this is the worst thing that could happen ever. But to me right now it seems like it. I’m feeling a loss… that sounds so silly, but it is what it is. I’ll update more when we get more results, in 48 hours or so. Until then, keep us all in your prayers please.

Posted by Lisa at 04:43 PM | Permalink

Well, we called Kayla's Pediatrician this morning to follow up our ER visit from last night. He was not overly concerned and did not feel a need to see her (which I agreed with). He sent us to a lab to do a blood test (although he actually wasn't forcing the issue it was more of a "you can do this if you'd like", which I don't quite understand). We are looking for results in 2 categories:
1. Allergy to pecans, walnuts, cashews and pistachio's
2. Allergy to egg whites, milk (cow), soybeans, fish (cod), peanuts and wheat
Group 2 seems like such a broad category! But whatever. I guess we'll wait to see the results of the tests. Upon further questioning the nurse at Kayla's pediatrician (so not the Dr) I asked if we would do follow up tests if it turns out she gets a positive on one of the groups. The nurse said "no", we would just have to avoid the foods in that category if it turns out to be positive!! So.... yeah. I'm hoping that should one come back positive that she is wrong. I know she is not allergic to all of the things on either list, and I really don't want to have to avoid them all for the rest of her life (or for the next few years, or whatever) if she isn't allergic to it. And plus, it could also give a false positive. So.... I'm really hoping and praying that they come back negative. As many of you know, I love to eat nuts, and the thought of not being able to have them in our house, not being able to feed them to Kayla, worrying about Kayla in school and being paranoid that something will happen to her, knowing that she'll never be able to eat "birthday treats" kids bring in.... I know I'm getting WAY ahead of myself... but I feel sadden by the prospect of it all. I know it's probably irrational... selfish even. I just want the best for her. Clearly, if eating a certain food is going to cause her to react like she did yesterday then I want to avoid that at all costs. I guess I'm more afraid that we'll have to change our lifestyle... which I'm willing (clearly) to do for her safety, I'm just not wanting to do, and especially not wanting to do it if it's unnecessary (like she isn’t really allergic to it).

We were told that the results would probably be back early next week.... so please keep us in your prayers. In some ways, it would be nice to know what caused her reaction. If they both come back negative, then we're at a loss for what caused things. But if it comes back positive in either group, that will involved changes and the need for more questions to be answered.... and I'm not really prepared yet for that.

Posted by Lisa at 11:11 PM | Permalink

Well, we survived our first ER trip! Tonight we were sitting down for dinner and shortly thereafter Kayla was asking to get out of her chair (actually saying "up" and "out" rather than throwing food on the floor). Her face and eye were a little red and so we took her out, and suddenly her eye got worse and was really puffy, almost swollen shut. I ran upstairs and got Benadryl and we gave her a dose of that immediately. About 2 minutes later she threw up (all over me). We called our friend who is a nurse and she deferred us to our Pediatrician. When we called the Dr, they were concerned with the situation, but not if she was acting herself. However, she was not acting herself at all. She was extremely lethargic and pathetic, so they told us to head to the ER. She threw up while we were on the phone, and again a few minutes after that. We packed up a bunch of extra clothes for me and for her (just in case) and headed downtown to the hospital. We arrived there about 7 and had to wait a bit for triage to take us in. However, once we got to the ER, her attitude totally changed. She still looked terrible, but she was now acting full of life, talking, waiving "hi" to other patients, etc. It was at this point that I was no longer really worried about her and was thinking we probably didn't need to be here anyway. But when the Dr says to go to the ER, you go! So we stayed. We left around 8:30, so all in all we weren't really there that long. However, an hour and a half of entertaining a baby in an ER is really not that much fun, so it felt like much longer! But praise the Lord, she is doing ok. They had us give her another dose of Benadryl and we'll need to check on her at 1 and 5 this morning/night and give her more if necessary...

Tomorrow we'll call our Pediatrician and follow up with him. The big question is what was the cause of her reaction? She had 2 foods that have "allergy possibilities", cashews and strawberries. However, neither of these foods was new to her, she's had both multiple times over the course of the last several months. It might be related to that, it might not be. The ER Dr told us that we might need to be referred to an allergist to see what's going on with her. The reaction might be worse next time, if it is an allergy to a food (this time her breathing was never affected). So.... we'll see what he says. But for now we have been told to avoid nuts.

Overall, it was a bit of a stressful situation. It is scary seeing your kid acting and looking so pathetic and not knowing what to do about it. You feel helpless. It made me realize that God is in control, and ultimately she is His child, not mine.

Posted by Lisa at 11:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I have 2 reoccurring dreams. I haven't had these dreams my entire life, but I think I've had them my entire married life. Of course there are details that make every dream different, but the overall themes are the same. What do you suppose they mean?!

Dream 1:
I am traveling somewhere overseas. But my passport.... it's missing. I've left it at home, or it's been left in my checked luggage and it's been loaded on the plane, or I can't remember where I put it. Eventually I seem to find it... but I'm always running around frantically in the airport. Usually the dream involves me being part of a large group of travelers (like a college trip or something) so people are always trying to stall the plane taking off for me. When I do find my passport it says "Lisa Slighter" (which is true... I am actually in the process of getting a new one!). But I happen to bring a copy of my marriage license and I'm trying to explain to the attendant that it's a certified true copy of the license and they should be ok with it. Meanwhile the plane is taking off and when I finally do get through security I'm running outside down the runway trying to stop the plane.....

Dream 2:
I'm back in school. It's typically back at LCA and some of my LCA classmates are in it. However, it seems to always be a college course that I'm taking. 90% of the time it's a history class (by far my least favorite subject), the other 10% of the time it's English (probably my 2nd least favorite subject). The dream picks up in the last week of the semester and I learn that although I had thought I had dropped the class two weeks into semester, the registrar has no record of this and there is nothing they will do for me. Luckily, the class only has 1 thing you are graded on, the final. Somehow I have to pass the final without having any idea what has been going on in the class. I try to go to the class to beg the teacher for mercy, but I can never remember where and when the class meets. Sometimes instead of a final it's a paper that is due that I started working on (like came up with a subject) before I dropped the class, but the paper is due that day and I have nothing written (since I thought I'd dropped the class..... or sometimes it's not that I'd dropped the class it's that I'd just totally forgotten about the writing assignment).

These dreams STRESS ME OUT. I wake up in a sweat because I'm so nervous! I can't say exactly how often I have one of these dreams... probably a total of 4 or 5 times a year (so about every 3 months I have one of these dreams... which is saying a lot since I rarely remember dreams). But what do you suppose they mean?!

Posted by Lisa at 02:50 PM | Permalink