Newsflash.....

So, I have to apologize for the lack of blogs recently. We have had a roller coaster ride these past 3 weeks. Hannah celebrated her 6th birthday party. Jonah and I got sick with sinus junk.  Then last week, Jacob had an unexpected allergic reaction. Again, and again. He had 3 reactions that kept getting more and more severe to something-we didn't know what.  He kept having to go back to the Emergency Room and get a shot to help his body calm down. Friday night, he even had to get IV fluids. Saturday, the third time, his face got swollen, he was short of breath and I had to drive him to the ER. And they STILL refused to give him an EPI pen rx.  Seriously??? How can someone have 3 reactions in a week and you not give him one. We had no idea what he even might have been allergic to at that point, and the reactions kept getting worse. I remember thinking, ok, so if whatever he keeps getting exposed to happens again, we are going to have to call an ambulence. How are we supposed to avoid something if we don't know what it is. Then, someone mentioned his diet, and what had he eaten this past week. It dawned us, that each day he had a reaction, he had eaten this new type of bread I bought. It wasn't anything strange, just a plain white loaf of bread from the bakery at the store. But I had never bought it before. And each time he had eaten the bread he had a reaction within an hour or two. Immediately I checked the label, thinking maybe there was some strange new ingredient setting him off. But no! In fact, it was a much shorter list than the other breads we had and all ingredients that could be pronounced, and ALL ingredients he had hat before. Wheat, barley, rye, etc.  

So, since we realized this, Saturday evening, he has had nothing with any type of wheat/grain in it, and he's felt great. No more allergies, and he's even off the steroids from the ER. Last week, he was medicines to curb the allergy and he kept getting worse. Before yesterday we were thinking that this was what it was, but weren't sure. This is unknown territory to us.  But after hearing what the doctor had to say, we both started to feel condident that's what it was. Even the doctor said the symptoms were in line with a food allergy. He even brought up things that hadn't even occurred to us.  It made no sense to us that an allergy he had never had before that would show up all of the sudden like that. The doctor said that it's actually not unheard of though, to be fine one day and suddenly the next day your body has a brand new allergy. He also said that there is such a thing as cross contamination of sorts, when it comes to allergies, and when Jacob worked out in the yard last Tuesday, it could have aggravated the wheat allergy and made it much worse.Plus, each time he ate the bread, it got progressively worse, and other things he ate like macaroni and cheese  and a whole wheat sub didn't help. The symptoms kept compounding and Saturday, he had horrible stomach pains-apparently if you have a food allergy that can be a reaction as well. I had no idea that would have anything to do with it.

The dr. was super nice and gave us an EPI pen rx to protect him against this allergy and his wasp allergy (which we've known about for years).  He said we can't do the allergy skin testing, yesterday due to the medicines he's been on, but he did draw blood to test for this and hopefully we will know for sure by the first of next week.  This is just an answer to prayers, to know what is causing this.  It's going to be a major life change for him and us to. We have been trying to eat much healthier these last few months. We have, for the most part, cut out fast food.  Where just a few months ago, we were getting about 2 fast food meals every week. Now, I am trying to cook most of our favorite meals at home from scratch. If we get a craving for burgers and fries, instead of going to McDonalds which is HORRIBLE for you, we buy the stuff to grill hamburgers and bake fries in the oven. It has not only saved us money but empty calories as well. I haven't been able to kick my sweet tea fix yet, but I figure it's better to be drinking sweet tea daily than coke right?

I have been struggling trying to find gluten free foods/meals that he can eat this past week. I'm sure that is going to be a challenge. for us. So far we've had lots of grilled chicken and veggies. We are big bread people though, so it's going to be a big adjustment. As far as we know, it's not bothering him to have the kids and I still eating whole grains etc...and switching to totally gluten free is no doubt going to be expensive, as we try to find healthy alternatives to the foods we love. But in the mean time, I am just going to buy separate for him. If we have sandwiches for lunch, I will use different bread for him than I use for the kids and I. That way I can still make use of the foods I have already bought for my stockpile.   I think, as time goes by, we will probably eat more gluten free foods as a family. I am a big fan of brown rice and wild rice, and those foods are ok. But one of the benefits to this is he won't be able to have most processed foods. So no more frozen dinners. No more hamburger helper. That is going to help us all in the long run, as I start to choose mostly lean meats and fresh veggies. It's basically like a forced Atkins diet, lol. So be prepared for some (hopefully) yummy gluten free recipes to come as I continue to experiment with our meals in the future.