Andrea's Allergy Update #1

We went to see Dr. A. today. He is Andrea's new pediatrician. He, his office, and his staff, were very nice.

Before we saw Dr. A., I undressed Andrea, and the nurse weighed her. Andrea is about 26 and a half pounds now!

When the doctor came in, Andrea wasn't too sure about him. She has begun to show some signs of shyness around strangers, especially men. This was a very dark-skinned man, and Andrea's never met anyone like that before, so I think she was kind of uncertain about that, too. But she didn't really cry until he layed her down on the examining table. I was really surprised! She usually only cries when she gets her immunizations. But then he started to play peek-a-boo with her, and that got her to smile. :))

He read the doctor's report that we received by fax from Montana, and his first response was, "Wow, that must have been scary for you, Mom!" But then I had to laugh because the next thing he said was, "Gee, those American clinics, one thing on their mind--Billings Clinic--how much did they charge you?" You see, he didn't know that Billings was the city, and not a reference to the cost of the clinic visit! I didn't bother to correct him; but I had a hard time stifling the giggles!

Anyway, here's the summary of our plan for Andrea:

1. He gave her a prescription for a junior Epi-pen. It's basically a shot of adrenaline that will go into her thigh if she has another severe reaction to something. Its purpose is to give us time to get her to a hospital.
2. We are going to do a RAST on her, at H.-D. Hospital. It's a kind of allergy test, done by taking some blood, rather than the skin tests. We can do it any week-day, no appointment necessary, so I'm going to take Andrea the next day that I'm not called into work.
3. After Dr. A.'s office calls us with the results of the RAST, he said we should get her a Medic-Alert bracelet, and have her list of allergies on it.

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I'll post another update after we've done the test, and we've learned what items Andrea needs to avoid!