Mia the Muffin Baker

One of Mia's Christmas presents was a cupcake baking set. Since we can't have cupcakes we renamed it the Muffing baking set! She did most of the work as usual. I just measure the ingredients but she poured and mixed. I guided her on how full to make the muffin tins and put them in the oven. They turned out nicely!

Mia in a basket!

Last week we had a peanut incident at the post preschool. The teacher didn't realise that Mia's allergy was severe enough that she couldn't touch peanut butter. They did the classic preschool project where you put peanutbutter on a pinecone and roll it around in birdseed. Even though they used knives and spoons to put everything on, it was still enough to give her hives. When I picked her up from school my friend saw her before I did and asked "What happened to Mia's face?!" I noticed they were all carrying little baggies with the pinecones and told her teacher that she can't touch it. We had a conference the next day that included the school nurse. Her teacher was just horrified that she had put Mia in danger like that, she cried because she was so upset and scared. So we went over what she can't touch, ingest etc. We also recapped what symptoms to look for, what to do for them and when to use the Epipen. They are going through what I think is their third epipen training since school began, so I feel like it has been handled well. I'm just very thankful that it wasn't worse!

Before the benedryl kicked in

A couple of hours later

The pictures don't really show you how broken out she was, it was down her neck and chest, and she obviously touched her sides and her inside arm at some point because there was a cluster of hives in those places.

New food, new medicine

Who needs prime time TV when you have the Mia Chronicles?
For two days we have been trialing rice milk. We gave two ounces the first day, which was probably overkill, but it's like I'm new to feeding all over again. We gave three ounces yesterday and about three and a half today. We had TWO normal poops in a row! I won't go into detail, but to this mamma it was like beautiful art! I ran out of the room with the diaper and showed Gary, who was looking at me like I'd gone off the deep end. If we can get rice, that opens such a BIG ornate door! Just as important, this could mean that the Ketotifen is working! If we can avoid immunosuppression, we'll be over the moon with happiness!

On a little bummer note, the allergist is afraid that she's showing the first signs of asthma. She has been coughing a lot for seemingly no good reason and is also waking in the night from coughing. We now have an inhaler for Flovent twice a day and albuterol for "attacks". They gave us a walk-in slot in Peds for her first dose to make sure she wouldn't react. The Major gave an excellent tutorial on how to use it, but I still feel so mean pressing the mask against her face. She was extremely unhappy with me today. We went to the swimming pool afterwards so she forgave me pretty quick.

And so I don't leavey ou with bad news, we are weaning her off of the IVIG infusions. Instead of three weeks apart, this next will be four, then five and finally six. After that she'll be done and we can see what her immune system will do with it's own devices. I'm not sure what we'll do about the mediport. I'm not in favor of removing it right after, just in case she has to start the infusions again. I'm not being a pessimist and saying that I think her body will flip out again, I just don't want to remove it and need it again.

Sorry about the pictureless post, Gary has the harddrive with the photos :/