Spots, Oats, Development

**Because Ellie's funky spots are still rearing their ugly heads, you will have to deal with my amateur attempts at photography.  Subject: The Hungry Caterpillar.  And, no, I do not have too much free time :-P

My daughter has never enjoyed a Cheerio.  Ever.  Because if she did, she would die.  Literally.

Okay, maybe not if I had her EpiPen Junior handy.  What child doesn't eat Cheerios?  Isn't that a part of being a child? Gasp. Sob.

Hopefully, all of that will change next Friday.

RRROOOAARRRRR!  I am a VERY hungry caterpillar.

But First:

The past few weeks have been filled with all sorts of fun and entertaining appointments (notice my sarcasm) and then of course, Ellie's painful spotty, nasty, red, blistery rash in horrible places.  Yuck! And then the cellulitis of her leg due to part of the rash getting infected thus requiring antibiotics.  Yuck!  And the perpetual ear drainage/goop/pus/nastiness requiring various types of ear drops.  Yuck!  And snot.  Yuck, again!  She is leaking everywhere!  Well, not every where.  It really could be worse.  Seriously, much much worse.  Like vomiting too. . .oh wait, yep, projectile. Yuck!

Did I mention that I am VERY hungry?  

Well Check:
A few weeks ago was Ellie's 18 month Well-Child-Check. (I am a little behind on the updates.  Oops!)  My daughter, in her typical, smiley, Ellie-Bellie-Bear fashion was a super star charming the scrubs (and panty hose) off everyone in the office.  Yep, all while wearing a very fashionable Costco diaper and pigtails.

She gained weight, finally!  Hooray for GI meds!

Wt: 20lb;  3% on regular chart
Ht: 29.5 inches; 5% on regular chart

We checked her Thyroid and a CBC.  As many of you now know, children with Ds are at higher risk for thyroid problems as well as leukemia.  Therefore, routine screening is performed.  As you can imagine, my mommy brain panics which results in me contacting the office for lab results every other day.  They know me by name.

Lab results:  NORMAL !!!!  YAY!!!  Big. Sigh. Of. Relief. [Recall paranoid mommy brain]

Very very hungry!

Allergist:
Thanks to Ellie's previous anaphylactic reaction to infant oatmeal, we get to add "Allergist" to our list of specialists.  Dr. L is awesome.  Given that an oat allergy by itself is considered well, odd, we had to go in for more skin testing.  Goody.   Fortunately his office rooms have these really neat and exciting plastic dinosaurs.  It was in this office that I discovered Ellie loves dinosaurs.

Dr. L had his own mini panic attack when I informed him of Ellie's milk intolerance (excessive, projectile spitting up with poor weight gain).  Apparently, he was having visions of a milk allergy and then allergic eosinophilic esophagitis.  WHAT?!?!  Now being in the medical field, I am used to medical jargon, but I am not used to big ugly, multi-syllable words like "eosinophilic" anything with regards to my dear sweet baby Bear.  So imagine his (and mine) relief when the skin test came back negative for milk. . .as did peanuts, walnuts, cashews, almonds, and oats.

Wait. . .

Oats?????

OATS?!?!?!

Yes, oats.  Then, are you ready?  The IgE blood test for oats-also negative :-)
*As per Dr. L, the skin tests are much more accurate than the IgE blood tests.  The blood test was ordered by PCP.

Again, jumping up and down for joy.  Yay!  Happy!  Yippy!  My-kid-might-be-able-to-have-Cheerios yippy!

Next up, an in-office oat-tolerance-feeding-test with the allergist.