Food - The Challenge

With Hayden, our biggest struggle next to his hearing/speech has been food allergies. Early on he had a reaction to Soy Formula (violent throwing up after drinking soy formula), Lemon Poppy Seed Bread (hives), Reeses Pieces (hives), and now we've discovered a new one this week - watermelon (hives).

This weekend we went on a little mini-vacation to The Hideaway Ranch & Retreat. It was very fun and HOT! Temperatures spiking above 103 made outside activity difficult. But we had a blast anyway. I'll write about that in another post.

While we were there, some of our friends had brought watermelon to share with us. Hayden dug into a slice and loved it. A little bit later we noticed his face was breaking out in hives, but we didn't know if it was the watermelon (which I actually didn't even consider since he's had it once before), the new chips he'd never tried, or the cow hide on the back of the couch he'd been messing with.

Mark was convinced it was the cow hide, I was thinking it was the new chips. I never really gave the watermelon any thought.

We brought back four leftover slices home with us on Sunday, which I thought would make a great start to lunch for Hayden yesterday. He was LOVING it, and ended up eating almost 3 slices.

He then started saying "Belly, belly" and scratching his belly. I looked at his belly and it was a bit red, but I thought maybe from the scratching. Within 10 minutes he had hives from his mouth, under his chin, on his chest and down to his belly. He had eaten nothing else but watermelon. It was obvious he is allergic to watermelon. Then the light bulb clicked and I realized that on Saturday he had eaten watermelon right before the chips and playing on the couch. It wasn't the cow hide or the chips, it was the watermelon.

Watermelon??!!! Uh, who is allergic to watermelon...it's mostly, well, WATER.

Today was Corbin's 1 year check up (I'll post on that later), and while I was there I mentioned Hayden's food allergies and my desire to get him allergy testing. The doctor wrote up the paperwork right there and sent us across the hall to get his blood drawn. Let me tell you, it was a FIGHT.

I felt so bad, because when we first pulled into the parking lot Hayden recognized it as the doctors office and I had reassured him it was for Corbin and NOT him. My first official LIE to my child. Although, at the time I had NO idea that this was going to happen, but I still feel bad. It took me and 2 nurses to draw his blood. I think we scared every person in the waiting room. There is really no wall or door that blocks sound in the lab, you just walk around a corner and get the blood drawn. So EVERYONE heard his blood curdling screams.

And to top it all off, I think we left his brand new airplane toy there in all the chaos. I had just bought him a little matchbox airplane the night before and surprised him with it at the doctor's office so he would have something to do. He had it for approximately 1 hour and now it's gone.

So not only did his mother lie to him, strange people held him down and stuck him with a needle, but he lost his toy. Poor baby.

I don't think this is going to improve his doctor/patient relationships.

We should get the results in 2 weeks. We go back to the doctor on July 14th.