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Thursday, May 10, 2012

Day 2--Return to Clinic and the Dreaded Blood Work! May10, 2012

Today we returned to the clinic for the little guy to eat his 3mg of peanut again.  He didn't have any problems after going home last night.  He played and ate a big supper with dessert!  I'm not sure where he put it all after eating all those snacks!

The allergist didn't suspect we would have any trouble today, since everything went well yesterday, so he took his vital signs, assessed his lungs and the little guy drank down the dose with more juice.  We went to the waiting room  and within 5 minutes he began to complain that his mouth was really itchy.  I gave him another drink of juice and after about 5 more minutes he said it was getting worse.  I got the allergist and he checked him out and everything else looked good.  He feels the little guy will have this trouble for the next 2 weeks while he is on the liquid dosing.  Once he "graduates" to the next dose, it will be in powder form and people do not find that as orally irritating.  Once again, just like yesterday, after 30 minutes all the symptoms subsided.  After about an hour it was time for the real fun to begin.  Poor guy got blindsided with a trip to the lab chair to have his blood drawn.

The blood work serves a very important purpose in the study.  The researchers are able to analyze the blood of the participant to see what specific parts/proteins in the peanut that each person is allergic to.  I told the little guy that a peanut is kind of like a car--it has many parts.  People are only allergic to certain components and that is why some people just have itching while others go into full blown anaphylaxsis.  The allergist feels from observing the little guy that he will likely be positive to the oral itching/sensitivity parts of the protein.  He said that is the best kind to be allergic to.  When we go back in 2 weeks he should have the analysis complete and we can see just what the little guy is allergic to "in" the peanut.  Pretty amazing they can do that.  I am so thankful we are part of this study and it is so exciting knowing what he is doing will help others in the future get better too.

I digress...once we got to the lab chair the tears started--it never got as bad though as "the flu shot heard around the world" last fall!  He was very brave in February when he had blood drawn so I thought today might not be too bad.  The allergist missed the first try so we had a little more drama trying the second arm.  He was very still though and we just talked about his favorite monkey "Mo" and I did get a few giggles out of him while it was all going on.  Once we were done, both arms were bandaged up and as we went to leave I could tell he was white as a sheet--lips and all.  I put my arm around him, took our little bag of peanut syringes and he soldiered on to the car.  He had another snack and he pinked back up.  Of course he had enough energy to ask "what could we do as a special treat for me?".  And I made the mistake of asking "what do you want to do?".  Let's just say he can spot the most expensive Lego set on the shelf a mile away, and knows exactly how to melt his mother's heart. 

Having the little guy eat a little peanut is the best Mother's Day present in the world.

to be continued.....

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