Austin had some minor help on the spelling, but overall he did this himself.
AJ's practicing his name.
Austin said this is a big blue house with a green restaurant next to an apple tree and volcano. Notice the mountain climber. The building on the left is a really big church (notice the cross).
This is AJ's pic of our house. Notice the tire swing and pool.
The boys play while we wait. They love this dentist bc he's got PS3's, Xboxes, blocks, and a gumball machine (with toys, not candy) that takes tokens the boys earn for coming to the dentist!
School hasn't officially started yet, but we're trying to brush up before the big day (next Tuesday). This is what the boys did as part of their summer homework today.
AJ's work:
AJ says this is a picture of the fish he saw at the aquarium.
And Austin's work:
Austin also drew a pic about the aquarium trip. He drew starfish, an anemone, a jellyfish and a fish (specifically a 'look down'- a specie we saw that day)
We went to the park this morning. For some reason Austin said he didn't want to go and tried very hard to keep his fun having to a minimum. Notice the MedicAlert bracelet in the pic... we're back to that.
For the low, low price of zero dollars and zero cents, we all went to the Tampa Bay Bucs Training Camp today. It was a perfect day for it- not too hot considering we're talking Florida in August. We didn't realize you get to sit practically on the field and the players come over for autographs! It was SO cool. We finally met this guy- he's our neighbor (seriously)! And we met this guy- who's a quarterback, I think. And this guy. And these people, too! Austin's showing a rock he found. It was really a broken ceramic floor tile. Nate is showing a mouth full of gummy Life Savers.
My Dad and us. The funny thing about this pic is that my brother's VERY Asian wife took the picture. So much for the Asian tourist/camera friendly stereotype! She cut Dave's head out of the shot. We went to my sister Annie's for breakfast. She had a Wii- and now all 4 Fenn boys think that WE should own a Wii. Ugh. Anthony turned 9- but the party was really big bc we had relatives visiting for Canada. I think there were like 85 guests at the party. Austin's right in the middle of the noodle fight. Austin swam until he was a prune. He was so tired that he kept randomly bursting into tears- but he still refused to get out of the pool Nathan had a blast. He swam all day, too! Austin got a couple prizes and a $20 bill for all his hard work in Little Rock. AJ didn't swim in the pool at all, but in the evening, he decided to ride this floaty thing in the lake. They pull it behind the boat. AJ loved it so much, he refused to get off for others to get a turn. When it got too dark to swim, it was time to play Rock Band! AJ on the drums, Jonathan singing, cousin Jared on the guitar. Austin wanted to try the guitar, but it was so late.
After doing the bloodwork, Austin is subdued. Next up, peanut & chocolate ice cream. I found some baby Legos in the toy chest. That motivated Ozzy to sit up and play a little. We repeat this every 15 minutes for about 3 1/2 hours: (ice cream & gatoraid) After the final dose, Austin begins coughing. Because he has complained that his throat 'hurts' (vs. itches), he has no wheezing in his lungs, and he's having difficulty breathing, the nurse in concerned. His throat was closing up- she administered Benedryl and Albuterol. Luckily, the Benedryl worked quickly and the coughing stopped. They were about to use the Epipen if his breathing didn't immediately respond to the Benedryl.
Austin falls asleep right after. You can see in the pic below that his eyelids and ears are red but his overall complexion is flushed. This outcome was a pretty big disappointment. For about 20 minutes, were were hopeful that we'd be sent home with him being 'cured'. This day opened up many questions for the future- about what to do next. Our stress levels were pretty high. With the food challenge failed, our next concern was Austin's tolerance level. We were praying that Austin could still tolerate the 13 peanuts a day he had been on before- and that he hadn't lost his footing there.
We didn't realize that by Tuesday, the result of this challenge would no longer be our main concern. On Tuesday, Austin resumed his 13 m&m's a day with little problem. He complained a bit about his mouth itching, but then said, "it happens all the time".
While doing bloodwork on Monday, on the optimistic hope that Austin would have passed his food challenge, the doctor decided to run a full battery of tree nut RAST tests. This had never been done before, but she said she wanted to be sure that if she gave the 'all clear', all was actually clear. It was supposed to be a routine set of tests with the only result being to just cover our bases.
We found out on Tuesday morning that Austin tested postive for hazelnuts. Hazelnuts are in Nutella, Toblerone chocolate bars, truffles, coffee, confections, etc... Though not as prevalent as peanuts, it's an issue because it now means we're back to avoiding ALL nuts (cross contamination & cross-reactivity) and worrying about hidden dangers.
We're still not sure what it all means. For sure it's a major setback, but at very least Austin will have some protection against accidental peanut ingestion. Unfortunately, it looks like he'll still have a lifetime of asking if there's nuts in stuff.
The bad news is that Austin reacted during his 5 gram food challenge.
The good news is that today we discovered he can still tolerate his last daily dose (2 grams or 13 peanut m&m's)
The bad news is that we learned today that Austin has a hazelnut allergy along with his peanut crap. What does it mean? It means he will never be free. He will always have something to fear in food. It sucks on every level and has knocked the wind from us. After the dust settles and we can actually think straight, we'll get the nerve to tell Austin and decide on how to proceed from here....
