30 Days of Gratitude - Day Twenty Five

It's Thanksgiving.  The ultimate day of gratitude.  The day we gather together with family and friends, pig out, and share our thankfulness that we've made it through another year.
In the last couple of days we've had quite a development to be thankful for!  Earlier this week David had a food challenge for wheat.  A food challenge is the ultimate true or false test for food allergies.  There are blood tests and skin tests, but false positives happen a lot with those tests, especially for those with eczema, like David.  So, really, the only way to tell if David is actually allergic to something is to make him eat it and then see if he dies.
It's not really that drastic, but in my mind and my heart that's the way it feels.  It's terrifying. 
But David's allergist and I agreed that he hasn't shown any signs of wheat allergy.  We use flour in our kitchen, baking and dredging, but I've never noticed David reacting to it.  (They call that "baker's asthma" - there's your random factoid for the day.) 
So that's how I ended up earlier this week, encouraging my son to eat Wheat Chex, made from WHEAT - a food David has never intentionally eaten, sitting on the floor in an exam room at the allergist's office.  (Food challenges are typically conducted in medical settings for people with severe food allergies, just so, if anything comes up, medical help is standing by.  In fact, the first thing they did when we arrived at the office was weigh David so that they could have an appropriate dose of epi standing by in case David went into anaphylatic shock.)
But the challenge ended with vague results.  He had a lot of nasal congestion about halfway through the challenge.  I think it was because I was letting him play on the floor, kicking up dust bunnies.  (I could just kick myself for that one!)  But he didn't have any breathing issues or hives. So, the allergist let us leave with instructions to keep trying wheat and report back to him.
Today we tried animal crackers.  No reaction.  None at all.  He ate 10 animal crackers made from flour and had no allergic reaction. 
This opens up a whole world for David.  Pasta, sandwich bread, soy sauce, chicken nuggets, hamburger and hot dog buns, cakes and cookies.  Oh, and Play-Doh!  My son can play with Play-Doh!!!
I can't believe how grateful I am.