Doing more, so much more...

Okay, so I'm working on keeping up my blogging promises and so here I am...doing my "present-day posting" for your reading and viewing pleasure.

At this point in our lives I'm ready for so much more. I feel as though I've been to battle with these crazy FA's and am over fighting them. I am on to accepting them for all that they are. That COULD be because we're rounding the corner to Liv's 5th Birthday and there is little hope for outgrowing some of these FA's. I've spent so much time anticipating her 5th birthday being this huge turning point and like magic, she would be without food allergies and with FOOD. Okay, that's kind of stretching the truth...for about the last year I'd lost hope of age five being magic. That doesn't mean that her turning five isn't a pivotal time in our life. We are looking at hopefully eliminating wheat & soy from her not safe list. As a matter of fact, if all goes well...by this time next week Liv will have had her first ever SKIN testing done for wheat, soy and maybe (HUUUGE maybe here) peanut! If we can add wheat and soy back into her diet....or heck, even just SOY (if you've never read food labels...Soy. Is. In. EVERYTHING...ok...almost everything.), life sure would be a lot easier.

What do I mean by "if all goes well"? Well, Liv takes antihistamines every single day (along with a plethora of other daily meds). She's been on them 3 times a day for as long as I can recall, we've gotten her down to once a day and tomorrow will be her last day of taking any until next Weds. IF she should for some reason break out, or need an antihistamine before next Wednesday...the test is off. I would then have to work on keeping her off of the antihistamines for another 5 consecutive days and let the testing commence...whenever we get to that.

At the point of testing we will have immediate results and numbers, but this won't mean that we can just jump in and add these foods into her diet. After doing the testing and (hopefully) getting negative reactions, we move on to the food challenges. These will take place at the Main campus for National Jewish (if you don't know who they are, they are angels on Earth to some of us...check them out, they really are amazing!). The food challenges are lengthy and sound pretty boring at best. At least, I HOPE Liv's are boring...boring means nothing exciting happens...other than new foods being added to her diet, of course.

So much for organized writing skills, I wanted to convey how I am ready for more. I've found myself becoming quite the advocate for kids with food allergies. I've had to break down several personal barriers to learn to speak up for Liv and fear that not all parents will be able to jump those personal hurdles themselves. I find that I'm more and more involved in so many food allergy awareness organizations, discussions and support groups; all of this makes me happy. It makes the past almost four years worth all the while. The reason for this blog even happening is to share, share and share some more. I have hope that other parents will find solace in knowing we're not alone in this fight. I do promise to be as forthcoming as possible, through the good times, the bad times an the really REALLY bad times. Please hold me to that and ask anything you like.

I leave you with this and I now embark on the newest journey in my life...SEWING, yay!