Allergist Appointment

Burkley's been having digestion issues for seven months now. We've tried cutting down/out dairy, wheat, and nuts. We've tried two different probiotics. We've weaned. We've had him adjusted by our chiro several times. We've done stool sampling. No change, no answers.

Today we saw the pediatric allergist.

We started the morning by going out to a yummy breakfast. Then we hit the road.
It took a few months to get an appointment and we had to travel an hour and a half to get there.

He got to watch a movie much of the time while we talked to the doctor. ;)

 The allergist interviewed us for about two hours and spent some time evaluating Burkley physically. He wanted to know all the things Burkley eats and is exposed to on a regular basis. We went over the notes I've kept for almost a year now of his symptoms.

Then we were sent over to the hospital for the blood draw.

Here he's showing where they drew the blood. He cried through the whole thing while Marcus held him on his lap/restrained him. I had told him prior to the blood draw that he would be getting a "little pokey" but that Mama and Daddy would be with him the whole time to make sure he's safe. During the blood-draw, with tears streaming down his face, he was crying, "I don't like that little pokey!!" It was heart-breaking! Also, notice what he's doing in this pic with his fingers. I didn't even know he was doing that when I took the pic! He calls that his "trick" and does it all the time! I'm glad I captured that, even if it was on accident!

We let him pick something out at the gift shop in the hospital when it was all over. He chose this coloring book that has the "clear" marker, but makes the picture all colorful when used. Pretty cool.

We went to Chili's for lunch and splurged and got this yummy dessert. We were treating the day like a one-day vacation.

A friend of mine suggested we stop at Bass Pro Shop while we were in the area. We are not, by any stretch of the imagination, a "sportsman" family, but we thought it would be cool for Burkley.

Checking out the tents and wildlife were his favorite parts. We also bought him a Mickey Mouse fishing pole and he's excited to go fishing sometime with my dad or my brother.

Our homework from the allergist is to keep a diet diary for the next two months. The bloodwork will come back in 7-10 days and maybe we'll find some answers in that. Some ideas from the allergist are that Burkley has an allergy or sensitivity to "fatty foods" (i.e., the fat in foods) or perhaps it's an imbalance in sucrose and fructose in his diet because he does have a diet heavy in fruits and vegetables. The journey continues and we'll see what we can figure out. If the allergist cannot determine anything, the next step will be to see a pediatric gastroentologist.

The allergist was so nice and friendly and clearly great with kids. Watching my little boy get his blood drawn as he sat there with tears falling off his face made me incredibly grateful that this is all we are dealing with. Some parents have to watch their kids get poked and pricked way more often for way worse illnesses. Heartbreaking. I don't know how they do it.

Thank you to our friends and family who were praying for us today. Burkley was running a low fever (100-101) all day and in a weird way I think that helped because he was clingy and calm most of the day, not his usual high-energy self. That helped since we were stuck in a room for several hours and in the car for a few hours as well!

I'm so proud of my little trooper and so thankful that we could do this all together as a family today.