National Jewish Day 4

Another busy day.

First we did the bronchial provocation. David failed big time. He only got through one dose of the medication before he showed signs of an asthma attack. His pulse oxygenation rate went from 96 to 92, he started to wheeze and he started coughing. We won't hear about what that all means medically until tomorrow, but the fellow in charge of David's care basically said that David's lungs, while healthy (from the chest x-ray) are very twitchy and very easy to stimulate into an attack with any allergen.

Then we did a food challenge. Today we tested pollock, a white fish. David passed again with flying colors. So, David can have fish sticks :-)

An occupation therapist came and did a fine motor skill evaluation with David today. David is at or ahead of all his developmental norms with fine motor skills. He'd probably be ahead in everything, but he got a case of the "no's" in the middle of the exam and wouldn't try to complete a couple tasks.

I also met with a nutrionist who was very encouraging. She said that we are doing a great job. She also gave me some numbers to shoot for to help David continue to gain weight (he is in the 15% now instead of the 5%) and a lot of ideas to help us do that. Lots of dips and maybe some smoothies. I think now that David can have fish we'll see some improvement in his eating because he can have more variety.

But the best news of all was the blood work we've heard about today. We'll hear all the details tomorrow during David's clinical review, but the overview was awesome. David's IgE level is now 488.

Brief medical and history lesson. IgE is one of the main histimines in the human body. When it is elevated the body is prone to developing allergies. In July of 2007, when David was first tested he was at over 4000 and normal for a child his age is 15, so over 400 times the normal level. By the time we got to NJ the first time in January of 2008 we had gotten his level down to 1600. We were told that if we avoided all his allergies (removing our dog from our home and not letting him eat things he is allergic to) we could expect his levels to drop about half every year. So we expected and hoped for the tests to show 800. 488 is incredible. We were also told that his specific reaction to each of his allergies was less and many of his false positives had disappeared (meaning that his blood work no longer shows that he is allergic to rice, etc. that he know he is not). We don't know if we'll be able to do any food challenges to any foods we think he is allergic to, but we'll find out tomorrow.

The schedule for tomorrow includes a food challenge to salmon and a clinical review of all the information we know about David so far.

But seriously, just to say it again because I can't contain my excitement, 488!!!! 488!!!