Christmas tree fun

I have fond childhood memories of going to the local hardware store "Chubby & Tubby" to select a fresh Christmas tree each year. We are carrying on the tradition at our local Home Depot. Not quite as adventurous as cutting your own, but maybe simple is better at this stage of life with small kids. The boys were bubbling over with anticipation of the annual event. They were even excited to help hang the ornaments, which was a first this year. The decorating process was a little crazy, but I let them hang as much as they could without help. I hope they will will look back on these Christmas traditions as delightful memories, and most of all I hope they remember Jesus being the focus of our Christmas activities! In a few days we will start the Advent wreath readings and candle lighting.

Baby shower for little sis!

My neighbor hosted a baby shower for me today for ladies on the street and a few friends while my mom is here visiting. It was so fun to be surrounded by such special ladies. We ate some great food and enjoyed opening the little girl things! I am still not used to the idea of having a little girl in the family soon, but all this pink is making it seem much more real!

Sweet friends from nursing school.

Petit fours!

Sam

As many of my friends know, Sam has not had the easiest first 18 months of life. To make a long story somewhat short, he has always had trouble with food. He had terrible colic starting at 2 weeks old. When we introduced solid foods, it became apparent that many things restarted his colic symptoms and he developed eczema and diarrhea. He has never eaten or drank well and mealtimes consisted mainly of a lot of screaming and crying. He has been constantly irritable and a poor sleeper and had frequent infections. Between 12 and 15 months of age his weight gain had stopped to the point of his falling off the growth curve. Dealing with all of these unexplained issues began to consume our family. It was becoming hard for me to interact much with our older boys through the day because Sam's constant misery and sickness required all of my time and energy. All of us shed many tears of frusteration and discouragment over not knowing how to help him. After taking him to an allergist and dermatologist without helpful results, we took him to a pediatric GI specialist who started him on some anti-reflux medication. Meanwhile we did more research of the medical literature and started experimenting with his diet and found that his symptoms improved dramatically with elimination of certain foods. MANY foods!

Sam at Vanderbilt Children's before his procedure.

By this time we had found that he cannot tolerate any dairy, wheat, soy, eggs, peanuts, fish, white rice or beans and had eliminated them from his diet. Sam finally underwent an endoscopy at the end of October. Biopsies of his esophagus showed some significant inflammation. The GI doctor feels that these findings in the setting of his dietary restrictions and treatment for reflux suggests that Sam probably has a condition called eosinophilic esophagitis that is being partially managed by these measures. This condition is basically a reaction to foods or environmental allergens in the esophagus that can cause pain and inflammation. Unlike anaphylactic food allergies that cause an immediate reaction, this kind of allergy often has a very delayed symptom response of 36-48 hours or longer and often does not show up on traditional skin prick type allergy tests. This explains why all of his allergy tests were normal and it took us so long to figure out what foods make him sick.

Sam with his special pancakes and EO28 supplement. Its this look on his face that keeps me going!

Since changing his diet, Sam has been like a whole new child we have never known up until now! He is able to play, laugh, smile, sleep through the night and even eats! His skin rash went away and his poop is normal. Because his diet is so restricted, he drinks a special hypoallergenic supplement to help him get enough calories. Sam gained almost 2 pounds in a month after starting this supplement. It is tricky for me to maintain this special diet- most packaged foods contain at least one ingredient that will make him sick. Because he is still too little to understand why he can't eat what everyone else has, we have made some major adjustments in our family's diet and mealtime routines and provide him with as many foods that look "normal" as we can. He seems to have an uncanny ability to detect off limits foods on other people's plates, and then throw a fit that ruins the entire meal for everyone. Clearly we are working on this as much as we can and it will get better as he gets older, but its hard to stick to a tough "eat what's in front of you or go hungry" approach when your child has been sick and underweight for months. We are also getting help from a special feeding therapist at Vanderbilt to use appropriate strategies to help him develop and maintain good eating behaviors.

This means cooking two versions of everything or just cooking everything allergy free. At first every trip to the grocery store was a major anxiety provoking nightmare. This lead to the necessity of learning the special considerations of gluten, egg and dairy free baking! Thank you Jesus for allergy cooking recipe blogs! Seeing my baby eat special treats that make him happy and won't hurt him makes it all worthwhile.

There are still many unanswered questions about additional foods that Sam probably reacts to and how his disease will evolve over time. For many kids it is a lifelong condition. The main treatment is dietary managment. We are looking at taking him to Cincinnati Children's Hospital for special allergy testing called an atopy patch test, which is not available in Nashville. Managing a child's diet based on the results of this test has been shown to successfully treat eosinophilic esophagitis in 75% of kids.

I am so thankful that God has been faithful and near to us as we have walked this challenging road with our precious little boy. I am so constantly aware that there are many families dealing with problems much more scary and serious than this. We are thankful for all of our friends and family who have and continue to pray for us and Sam and support us through this discovery process.