Mother Goose Time Goes to the Allergist!

This was a hard week for my daughter. Since we moved we have had to find all new doctors and specialists. It's time for her yearly allergy appointment and she was not looking forward to it. Last year it looked as if she was out growing her egg allergy so we did a food challenge in the doctors office. She passed but complained about her stomach hurting the whole time and even got a hive on her face. I wasn't so sure how much of a pass it really was. We continued giving her egg baked into muffins and she still complained of stomach aches and eventually said her mouth itched. We stopped giving her egg after that. So this year we were going to have her skin tested for egg again to see what the result showed. We saw a new doctor though and this one wanted to recheck a few different foods and he wanted to do a blood test as well so we could compare and get a more accurate result as to what she might be able to tolerate. I was happy, she was not. It was very dramatic. She cried, whined, yelled at the nurse and the doctor once, and then bravely did what she needed to do. I was proud of her. Her skin test still showed as positive for allergies to egg, as well as peanut, and cashew which we already knew. However, it showed up as negative for almond! We were surprised and now crossing our fingers that the blood work comes back as negative for it as well. Once we get the blood test results back we will have a better idea of what foods if any we can challenge.

I knew this was going to be a long appointment because we were seeing someone new, and it ended up being a little over 2 hours long. I thought ahead though and brought some of our Mother Goose Time  activities with us. I was hoping that it would help my son get through the wait a little easier. It worked out great. We had a lot of fun and it helped keep my daughters mind off of some of the stuff that was going on. The skin tests are very itchy and it helped having something else to focus on.

We started off by reading the suggested book from the Teachers guide while waiting for the doctor to come in. It was a very fun book about different animals in the pond. It got us talking about the animals and remembering the book we read the day before that was about what the pond animals ate. So we talked about food chains and life in the pond. We also made plans for going to a near by pond soon and talked about what we were going to look for.

Once the doctor came in I gave them the coloring page that I printed off the members resources page on the Mother Goose Time website. They happily colored while I talked to the doctor and waited for the skin test to be completed.  

We also had a chance to do the cover page of our journal while we were there. He drew a picture of himself standing in a pond looking for tadpoles.

By the time this stuff was finished we were done with the appointment and it was time to go home. It only took a little planning ahead to make sure I had a backpack filled with markers, crayons, and the activities I wanted to bring. I also threw a few snacks in there as well and what I was sure was going to be a disaster ended upactually being a little fun. I know that I will be bringing Mother Goose Time to all future appointments from now on.

*Mother Goose Time has generously provided our curriculum to us in exchange for our stories and honest opinions*