Egg White Challenge

This Tuesday we had another LONG appointment at the allergist office. Davis had his egg white challenge. He was diagnosed with an egg allergy at a year old. He's NEVER had eggs before. Not even in baked goods. I had to boil 4 eggs to take with to the appointment. It's funny that I had to look up how to boil an egg. YES, it's been that long since I've boiled one. We dropped Blake off at school extra early and made it to the allergist by 8:30am. First, they had to do a mini skin test on his arm with real egg white, egg white that they usually use for the skin test, and 2 controls (histamine and saline). It took about 5 minutes for the histamine to react, but once it did....Davis became very upset and kept saying he wanted to go home. :( After the 15 minute wait, and NO reaction to the egg on the skin test we got the ok to move forward with the food challenge!

They took the first set of vital signs and gave him his first small piece of boiled egg white. I'm so glad I thought to buy a new movie the day before the appointment to keep him occupied. I plugged in the DVD player (Thanks Libby!) and started the movie. Every 15 minutes they would come back in the room to check vitals and increase his dose of egg. By the third dose he had to eat it with a spoon! We had to have 6 doses with no reactions before they would say we could add egg back in his diet. I knew how all this worked. We had been here twice before with milk. The first milk challenge we had, he did great until the very last dose when he broke out in hive. So, I knew from experience not to get my hopes up. After every dose, I would make him lift his shirt just to make sure he didn't have a rash. My fingers were crossed all the way to the end.

He LOVED the egg! I'm not sure if he was really just hungry or if he really liked it. He sure was chowing down on those eggs!

At 12 noon we finally got the verdict...he PASSED the egg white challenge! We can now add egg white in his diet! We have the egg yolk challenge scheduled for June 16th. If he passes that one that means he has outgrown ALL his food allergies! FINGERS CROSSED!

Porter Ridge 7U Challenge Ball Tournament

Blake had his first challenge ball tournament this past weekend. What a whirlwind it was! It was HOT! There were 4 teams in the tournament and it was held at MARA in Matthews. Our first game was at 11am on Saturday morning. The kids played GREAT! You could tell they were all having a great time out there playing ball! The Pirates won the first game by the 10 run rule. :) GO PIRATES!

They had about an hour and a half break before playing another game at 3pm. Several of the players and their families came out to our car to grill hot dogs. :) Steve tends to go all the way!

The second game was a bit tougher. We played Indian Trail and had scrimmaged them in the past. It was ugly. The boys got beat pretty bad, but you could still tell they were all having a blast! We hurried home for a good nights sleep before starting all over on Sunday.

Sunday we had a game at 2pm against one of the MARA teams. The kids played great and the score was pretty close but we lost. :( Since we lost that game, we played again at 4pm. Yes, that meant back to back games. The kids had about 20 minutes to rest before starting all over again. It was hot and all the families were melting in the stands, but the kids were having a ball! We ended up finishing the tournament in 3rd place. I think the Pirates did GREAT for this to have been their first tournament. Now, let's see how much we can improve before the next tournament Memorial Day weekend!

GO PIRATES!

Alina

Well, it's about time I started a blog! I've had several tell me I should do it and I've finally decided to start! Now, let's just see if I can keep it up!

As many of you know, Steve and I decided earlier in the year to host a child from Belarus this summer for 6 weeks. We have worked hard to raise money to get her here through a group called Monroe ABRO. We have asked for donations, hosted a golf tournament, raffled off a cake and sold AutoBell carwash tickets. Through all of that we reached our goal of $2000 to get Alina here! We are excited beyond belief. In our group we have 9 children coming this summer. These are all children that have been exposed to radiation from the Chernobyl meltdown. They come to the US during the summer to help boost their immune systems with clean air, clean water and medical evaluations.

Alina turned 8 years old in March and lives with her mother in a hostel. She lost her father last year and has had a hard time dealing with her loss. She does well in school and has many friends. Yesterday, I checked my email and was suprised to finally find a picture of her! It made my day!

I can't believe it's only a little over a month before we pick her up from the airport! She will arrive June 18th!