Sunday, June 15, 2008

Doctor Visit....WooHoo!

We finally got Katelynn in to see her doctor. Her stomach aches and vomiting had gotten worse since last post to where she was getting sick every 2 or 3 days. The last time Katie got sick, I noticed hives on her upper back. She hadn't had hives in months which was good but that is how she reacted in the past when she ate corn. This led me to believe that my assumption was correct that Katie's allergic response to the "whatever" had move to being what I call internal, like mine. This means that I never show an allergy by a skin reaction, I get sick to my stomach and can vomit. That is exactly what we were seeing Katelynn do. When I saw the hives finally develop again while she was sick, I knew it was only an allergic response and not something worse!

We got to the doctor and there were no answers......UGH! So we are now back to me keeping a Food Diary of EVERYTHING she eats for the next month. If it goes in her mouth, I write it down, along with any reactions.

The really ruff part is we now have Katelynn on a strict NO CORN diet. Sound easy huh? Well if you really want to know the challenge we are up against with this, go to you food pantry and read ingredients. Look for corn starch, corn, food starch, modified food starch and oh yeah, my favorite......corn syrup! You will find that there is a bit of corn in almost everything! It is a huge "filler" in the United States. Corn Syrup alone is the biggest challenge, it is even in ketchup and mayonnaise. We did find a mayo that didn't have an corn syrup or corn starch, that was very, very cool. Oh yeah, hot dogs have corn in them to.

So the next time you are curious about what you are REALLY eating, read your labels.....you might be surprised!

The best news of all..................Katelynn hasn't been sick for a whole week!!!!!!!! It's worth the effort by far!

Take Care and Happy Father's Day,
Rebecca in Becky's World 101

Saturday, June 7, 2008

Promises, Promises

When I started this blog I promised myself that I wouldn't let more then 2 days pass before I would blog. I even have a Blog Book to write my thoughts down. I often do this when I am holding our youngest at night for bedtime. My bright idea was to then take time and transfer all my thought into Word and then I could just copy and paste every few days.......Yeah, RIGHT!

As you can see by the date of this entry and my last, it's been a little longer then a few days. What's even worse, I have 2 blogs "in the works" saved here in my files, just haven't finished them yet. So much for "planning" ahead. LOL!

To make matters worse, lately things have been getting more and more hectic in our lives. Our oldest daughter, Katelynn has food allergies. The most challenging part is we don't exactly know what she is allergic to. All the test came back inconclusive and after a multitude of blood draws (5-6 within 1 year), a series of skin allergy tests and some various other tests, we (meaning the doctor, me and my hubby) decided it was time to give poor little Katelynn a break.

Recently, Katelynn has been getting stomach aches out of "nowhere" and then vomiting several times over the course of 2-3 hours to then later recover and seemingly be fine, until next time she does this. This past week, she did it twice within 4 days of each other. A painful thing to watch your child go through, to say the least. Especially difficult is knowing that you CAN'T make it better because you don't know what IT is and knowing full well that you little baby is going to have to go through another group of tests that most likely will include needles, which she is deathly afraid of.........UGH!!!!!!

Amidst all this "knowing" and seeing her go through this, all you can do as a parent is hold her tight, keep her hair out of her face, wipe her forhead and tell her it's going to be alright when you don't really have a darn clue IF it is going to be alright.......oh yeah, there is a whole lotta praying going on too!

You smile and tell her the bug will go away, that the doctor will help and we WILL find out what else is going on, while the whole time in the back of your mind is all the scary thought and terrible stories you have read, heard our been told about of little children being healthy one minute and sick the next and the parents of these children left to face terrible, unimaginable things like finding out their child has cancer!

That may sound over dramatic but it happened to some friends of ours and every time Katelynn goes through another bout of "problems" that little boy comes to the back of my mind. (The good thing is the little boy went into remission and is still alive and going strong today, 4 years later! YEAH!) Ok well enough yucky thoughts. It's time to go and work on some crafts for VBS (Vacation Bible School). That as well as the end of school is coming up and I am excited to have Katelynn home all day. Sarah LOVES when her big sissy is home. They miss each other terribly when Katie is at school and I love to see them two play together. I dearly hope these two will always be this close!

Take Care and See You Soon,
Rebecca in Beckys World 101