FIND THE POSITIVES

To most things one may perceive as negative you can also find the positive.

Example--- Friday afternoon I was rushing around like a madwoman- vacuuming, cleaning the bathrooms, dusting the tops of furniture.... (yes, I know Pesach cleaning doesn't NEED to be spring cleaning- but that's just what happens anyway...)

but then it was dosing time- which forced me to stop what I was doing. Since I need to observe Coby for the next couple of hours, I was forced to stop working, kick my feet up and just chill. Yes a two hour rest time can be a bit of a nuisance, but at time an enforced rest time can be a very good thing indeed!

On Friday Yitz picked up the supposed proper color coded peanut capsules for Coby. I was excited to peek in at them to get a cute rainbowy picture of cute little capsules. Instead what I found was this:

Are you kidding me???? They only managed to find TWO colors?! The whole purpose for color coding is to make sure you don't screw up and accidentally give your child the wrong dose. The number/dosage is written in teeny print on each bottle so having a color coded pill- for example red for 100, blue for 175, green for 250 and yellow for 500 would have been extremely helpful. Instead what we got was the above. Easily interchangeable 100 and 175s and 250s and 500s. MORONS! It is so easy to screw up and give the wrong pill with what they did and those results could be catastrophic. Thankfully I can find the positive again here with the OCD/analness of my personality because it means that I have all the bottles packed away except for the current week's, but knowing with certainty that a specific color meant a specific dose would have been nice. IDIOTS! 

At least I can now get the pills open relatively easily, though truth be told the powder is a bit reluctant to come out of its 'casing'. Even digging around with a toothpick doesn't remove 100% of the powder. BUT it is a nice change that the flicking at it, and squeezing it and tapping it to remove as much of the powder as we can does not result in it splintering in my fingers anymore, so that's a plus! Progress!

Coby is being a real trooper downing his dose. It takes a few spoonfuls now to get every last speck (that we managed to remove from the capsules) into him. Coby is not a big fan of this but he understands the importance. Today he was talking about all he will do when (IYH) he graduates--- the ice cream cakes, Entenmanns, the restaurants--- but he reminded us that he has no interest in eating "em em ems". It was too cute- he didn't even know how to pronounce M&Ms.

Parents have been posting that it becomes really hard for the child to dose when it comes to the highest form of powder- and it can be a real challenge for the child to get it down. I can understand that since he's already having a bit of a hard time swallowing 175, and in 12 days time he is expected to swallow 500! Yikes! But we are all confident he can do it. He really is my super-hero! It is crazy that I am now researching what type of peanuts to buy within the next few days. How is this happening?!

Meanwhile I am constantly being reminded as to why we OIT. I read about another food allergy death. The guy was too embarrassed to speak up in front of his friends and tell the restaurant his allergies. His parents admitted that he was always embarrassed about it. And now he is dead. It is horrific. I can understand though why it would be tough to speak up. It could be shyness. It could be the want to just fit in and not call attention to themselves. It could be hard. That's just real life. Right now Coby loves talking about his allergy. He is not embarrassed by it. But that changes when kids become tweens and then teens and young adults. That's just the reality of it. He may love talking about it now, but that probably will change. But for now he is NOT shy about talking about his allergy now, at age 8, he is even more excited talking about OIT. 

When we put Coby into a different school than his brothers attended it was because we were told Mikey & Josh's previous school may not be able to keep him safe. As much as we loved their school for every other reason, Coby's safety comes first, so we needed to place him in a different school. When we chose the school he is currently in, we felt comforted when the head of the school at the time, told us that one of his children also has anaphylactic allergies and he gets it. (Obviously we felt sorry that he was going through it as well, but we felt comforted that he gets it). We were also comforted by all the open communication we had with the school nurse. She assured me she will take good care of Coby and she has. She was always available to us, always willing to learn more, train and re-train the staff and went above and beyond in helping our Coby-bear. We just found out that she is making aliyah this summer. When Coby found out she won't be here next year he was so sad. "I will miss her so much!" he exclaimed. He doesn't even realize the 'behind the scenes' work that she does, he just knows how nice she is. She has been a G-d send to us. Coby couldn't have gotten any luckier in that department.We will miss her for all she has done for Coby and for the sweet person she is.

I am now extra relieved that come 4th grade Coby should be completely desensitized (if all goes well) when she will no longer be there with him. Yes, they will get a new nurse, but her shoes will be hard to fill. Another win for OIT.

And once again--- labels... It is not law to disclose the type of facility a food is made in, but if it doesn't say "made in a nut-free facility"- there is no such thing as guaranteed safety. The following item DOES state, 'made in a facility with nuts'--- and this picture shows exactly WHY we will not buy anything made in a facility with nuts. It is a game of Russian Roulette.

Yep, that's a peanut mixed in a lentil mix.

I cannot wait til we can rest so much easier because OIT will set us free.