Oh Boy! The Month of May has been crazy around here. It started off not too bad. It took a turn for the worse when we took a short 3 day trip to Edmonton on the 7th and went down hill from there. Call it a coincidence or Lena hates Edmonton. We have only taken  the girls away from home twice, both times to Edmonton. The first time Lena became very ill with a shunt infection. After coming home we spent more than 5 weeks in the hospital battling a very nasty bug. You can read more about that ordeal starting here.  The second time, a few weeks ago, all was well when we left home. When we got to Edmonton the hotel had lost our reservation and as we discussed the matter with the hotel clerk, Lena started crying, hard. She never cries. We got a room and rushed her upstairs just in time for her to vomit all over me. Yeah, an excellent start to our trip.

Long story short, we had an awful ”holiday” Lena was miserable to whole time. We even took her to the Children’s hospital one night to rule out a shunt issue (after last time I wasn’t taking chances). After 3 days of crying and general discomfort for all parties involved we came home and went straight to our hospital, where they know her.

May 7-10 Edmonton, crying and very upset when awake.

May 10 - Hospital to rule out shunt, nope, no shunt problem just a nasty virus.

May 11th (Mother’s day) - Lena breaks out in a body rash, back to the hospital (viral rash confirms last night’s diagnosis). Yep, I had my mother’s day dinner with my Mom in the ER - pizza.

May 12th back to the hospital for repeat blood work, it wasn’t so great on the 10th - by now she seems to be a bit better, not so irritable. Blood work still sucks, they consider admitting her but decide to wait two more days.

May 14th Lena is great, had lots of sleep and is herself again, blood work comes back almost normal, I take a huge sigh of relief and boogie on out of the hospital.

May 13th Lena is great, Kassie is great we go to PT in the morning. By noon Lena is miserable again. Yeah!

May 14th Now desperate, I call every Dr. I can to find out why Lena is still miserable. We go to see our Neonatologist, Dr. Givelichian. Probably wasn’t done with the virus, too much too soon. Fluids and rest. That night she slept 17 hours, woke up happy and has been great ever since.

This takes us to the May long weekend in Canada. For Christmas I got tickets to see the Phantom of the Opera in Saskatoon on the 17th. I love musicals and was very much looking forward to the night out. With Lena sick, I wasn’t sure I would be able to go. She woke up great on Saturday the 17th and stayed that way. As promised by bestest friend Leah and Faith babysat so that Wayne and I could go out. The girls were upset when we left but were otherwise great for their babysitters and we did our best to relax.  Really I tried, I think I may have even succeeded for awhile.

Side note: the Phantom is not bad but it is not the best musical I have ever seen. I enjoyed Miss Saigon and CATS much better.

The weekend also brought my birthday. I got to sleep all night long, and woke up to some very cute kids bearing gifts. Kassie was very excited to be part of the birthday action. Wayne and the girls bought me a beautiful white gold ring with three diamonds, one for each of them. I love it.

Leah stayed the weekend and we had some good girl time visiting, planting the garden, baking cookies and she even cleaned out the chicken coop. (yeah I know she’s an angel) She really is great with the girls, she even got Kassie to wear her glasses. She now wears them more than she takes them off. Thanks Leah.

The girls have really done a lot of growing up this month. When I look at them they look so big, they definitely do not look like babies any more, they are toddlers now. Kassie wants to be into everything and she definitely has an opinion about things. She hates to be left alone and cries alligator tears whenever I have to leave the room and don’t bring her with me. Lena has made some great improvements too. She is expressing herself more and is making some great progress in the gross and fine motor departments. She pulls on the highchair handle to pull herself up and has started using her fingers to grab more. And for the drum roll…. she is very close to independent sitting. When she is not too tight she can now sit all by herself for a few moments, sometimes as long as a minute. Go Lena!

We buy these things by the case full. She loves them. At 35 calories per 7g (about 16 crunchies) they are also a good way to add som extra clalories with out fighting with her.

Kassie is addicted to Gerber’s Lil’ Crunchies. They are like cheezies but veggie flavor, for toddlers. Feeding a micro preemie can be adventerous at times, heck, down right frustrating. There are oral aversions, picky eating, gagging, vomiting and more. I have never been a calorie counter, couldn’t be bothered. Now I am counting calories for my kids, not to cut them but to add them , as many as we can, as often as we can. So when meal time rolls around, it is doubly frustrating when Little Miss Kassie won’t eat. She has a brilliant stubborn streak and if she doesn’t want something her little hand shoots out and pushes the offender away. URGHHH.  Gerber Lil Crunchies, either flavour, are sometimes the only thing she will eat at a meal.

I keep easy to grab foods handy for when she gets hungry. When Kassie gets hungry she gets really whinny so I put her in her high chair and grab something quick and easy, like the Crunchies for her to eat while I prepare a meal. Well yesterday, she ate half a tin. I started her off with just a few, made lunch and she wouldn’t eat it.  All she would eat was the Crunchies (I think I snuck in 2 spoon fulls of squash). Not an ideal lunch but at least she ate something and at 35 calories for 7g (the can is 42g) we did okay in the calorie department too.

I am glad that I decided to switch to BPA Free bottles when I did. Heck I am glad I have bottles at all.

I don’t know about the rest of the country but in Saskatoon, there are almost no bottles to be found anywhere. All of the major (and minor) retails have pulled all bottles containing BPA from their shelves. Bottles that are BPA free are in such high demand that most stores are sold out and the manufacutrers are back ordered. They just can not keep up with the demand. There are glass bottles available at Li’l Sprouts but other than that new mothers who do not have bottles may be forced to borrow old, unsafe, BPA infested bottles from friends. YIKES.

We bought ThinkBaby BPA Free plastic bottles. I love the bottles, the shape is great and easy to hold but the nipples and lids leave something to be desired. The lids are too tall for the nipples so the milk leaks out even with the lid on, a real pain, and the nipples leak like crazy when the bottle is inverted because they only have one large hole instead of several small ones like the avent nipples.  I wrote to the company and they wrote back saying that they are fixing the lid issue and that they are coming out with a cross-cut nipple to prevent leaks and spills. I sure hope they are available soon, I am tired of cleaning milk off the floor. I hope they offer to replace at least the lids free due to the manufacturing error, those bottles were expensive.

Yesterday I took Lena to another allergist for a second opinion. When we went to the first allergist I just had this feeling and for once, I listened and took her to another doctor. Glad I did.

Our first test showed positive for milk (cow and goat), peaches, mango, barley, and egg. However, the doctor that did the test was not very clear on what we should do about her allergies. Further more, I had told them when I made the appointment that I was concerned about her haveing a latex allergy and when we got there I was informed that they were not able to test her for it because they did not have the supplies necessary, they had to be ordered in advance. Being that I told them when I made the appointment I thought I had given them advance notice.

The second doctor is not my favorite person but he is good at what he does so I bit the bullet and took her there. He tested her for milk, egg white, egg yolk and latex. I was informed that peach and mango need to be tested directly from a fresh fruit that the extracts do not give a good result. This doctor had not been told by the refering physician about my concerns with peaches and mangoes so I was not told to bring them. However, he told me that with foods, if a child reacts to them in anyway, avoid them and that yes, vomiting can be an allergic reaction.

Lena tested postive for an egg allergy right away and seemed to test negative for everything else. Then, as the nurse was going over the foods and labels to avoid with me she noticed that the scratch test area for the latex was reacting. The doctor came back in and confirmed what I really did not want to hear. Lena is allergic to Latex. I somehow expected this as we were warned of the risk by her neurosurgeon. With being an micro preemie and having been exposed to latex since she was born (in the NICU) and after having so many surgeries realted to her hydrocephalus, she is in a high risk group. I was just hoping that we had avoided it. My gut feeling told me she was allergic to it after she reacted to peaches the way she did i was just hopin I was wrong. Mother’s 6th sense I guess.

Many children out grow their allergies by the time they enter grade school. 96% of infants allergic to egg will out grow the allergy by the time they are 6. Lena will not outgrow her allergy to Latex. Latex is a life long allergy. You can not outgrow it. In fact the more you are exposed to it, the worse your allergy will become. We were sent home with a handful of pamphlets and information and lists of things to avoid. We were given an Epi Pen Jr and detailed instructions on how to use it. I ordered her Medic Alert bracelet this morning.

If you would like further information on products containing Natural Rubber Latex and product substitutions visit this site.  The protien found in latex (what causes the allergy) has been found to be related to several foods (peaches and mangoes are two of them). Of those who are allergic to latex, 70% will be allergic to at least one of these foods. This is called Latex-Food Syndrome, you will find more information about it here.