Michigan Trip Part Two
We arrived in Mason late on Sunday, and spent the next day unpacking and cleaning the car, visiting with Mike's family, doing laundry (yes, after 2 1/2 days we had already generated a load and 1/2 of laundry), and packing for our mini-trip to Houghton Lake.
Mike's dad has a cabin on Houghton Lake, and we couldn't miss an opportunity to spend some time there, so Tuesday we made the two hour drive North, and stayed there through Friday morning.
Unfortunately it rained pretty much the entire time we were there, so we didn't get a chance to get out onto the lake, and all the fun things we could think of to do with the kids weren't open, but we managed to make due just fine. We had a fun day of shopping and leaf hunting, topped off with a visit to the doughnut shop. We had amazing food the whole time, both homemade and at the local pizza place. The kids had fun playing with the SmartCycle and other toys in the cabin. The adults enjoyed watching Season Two of The Office (American version) and playing Settlers of Catan. Unfortunately I wasn't taking any pictures of any of it. What was I thinking?
What would a trip to Houghton Lake be without a visit to the Urgent Care? Two years ago we went with Alex after he fractured his arm falling down the 2 steps in the cabin, and this time we made a visit after Andy broke out in a full body rash.
The first night he turned red:
And then the next morning these huge welts started appearing all over. They were everywhere - front, back, face, legs. He looked awful!
I was afraid that he had had an allergic reaction to something that he ate, and the doctor at the Urgent Care thought the same thing. They drew blood to send away to test for food allergies, (which Andy only cried at the very end of), and sent us on our way. We spent the rest of our vacation avoiding eggs and peanuts thinking one of the two might have triggered the reaction. The results from the blood test came back a week later (when we were still in Michigan), and were very weird. Urgent Care called to say that he was allergic to one or more of a list of 7 common allergy foods. Those results were not helpful, to say the least, so we continued to keep him off eggs and peanuts until we could get an allergy test done back in Utah. Luckily after calling around to several doctors we found one that could fit us in before Jan/Feb.
Since I'm writing this blog post after we've returned home, I can tell you that we did visit a doctor here the day after we got back, and the allergy prick test showed no food allergies to any of those food items the other blood test tested. The doctor said that the results from the other blood test were weird in that it's usually a very specific test, and they should have been able to tell me what specifically he was allergic to. His guess from the symptoms and how they showed was that Andy was probably reacting to a viral infection. He did another blood test just to make sure, but said that he was 95% sure that Andy didn't have a food allergy. We will find out the results from this 2nd blood test early next week. Andy didn't cry at all when his blood was drawn. All the nurses were stunned.
I will say that I have a lot more sympathy for those who deal with food allergies. After only a few weeks I've come to realize how hard it is to avoid some of these foods, and how stressful it is trying to come up with foods to eat that he will eat that are safe for him. He ate a lot of hot dogs, french fries, oatmeal, and pop tarts for the last part of the trip, just because I knew they were safe and he would eat them. It's was so sad to not let him eat something that he really wanted, because it had egg in it. Hopefully the tests will come back negative, but if not, I'll definitely be talking to those of you who have had more experience with this stuff.
That seems like a good place to end for today. Thanks Wayne and Carol for an awesome time at the cabin, even though the rain thwarted all of your best plans.
Part Three will be focus on our visit to Holland, Michigan for Mike's 10 year college reunion.
Mike's dad has a cabin on Houghton Lake, and we couldn't miss an opportunity to spend some time there, so Tuesday we made the two hour drive North, and stayed there through Friday morning.
Unfortunately it rained pretty much the entire time we were there, so we didn't get a chance to get out onto the lake, and all the fun things we could think of to do with the kids weren't open, but we managed to make due just fine. We had a fun day of shopping and leaf hunting, topped off with a visit to the doughnut shop. We had amazing food the whole time, both homemade and at the local pizza place. The kids had fun playing with the SmartCycle and other toys in the cabin. The adults enjoyed watching Season Two of The Office (American version) and playing Settlers of Catan. Unfortunately I wasn't taking any pictures of any of it. What was I thinking?
What would a trip to Houghton Lake be without a visit to the Urgent Care? Two years ago we went with Alex after he fractured his arm falling down the 2 steps in the cabin, and this time we made a visit after Andy broke out in a full body rash.
The first night he turned red:
And then the next morning these huge welts started appearing all over. They were everywhere - front, back, face, legs. He looked awful!
I was afraid that he had had an allergic reaction to something that he ate, and the doctor at the Urgent Care thought the same thing. They drew blood to send away to test for food allergies, (which Andy only cried at the very end of), and sent us on our way. We spent the rest of our vacation avoiding eggs and peanuts thinking one of the two might have triggered the reaction. The results from the blood test came back a week later (when we were still in Michigan), and were very weird. Urgent Care called to say that he was allergic to one or more of a list of 7 common allergy foods. Those results were not helpful, to say the least, so we continued to keep him off eggs and peanuts until we could get an allergy test done back in Utah. Luckily after calling around to several doctors we found one that could fit us in before Jan/Feb.
Since I'm writing this blog post after we've returned home, I can tell you that we did visit a doctor here the day after we got back, and the allergy prick test showed no food allergies to any of those food items the other blood test tested. The doctor said that the results from the other blood test were weird in that it's usually a very specific test, and they should have been able to tell me what specifically he was allergic to. His guess from the symptoms and how they showed was that Andy was probably reacting to a viral infection. He did another blood test just to make sure, but said that he was 95% sure that Andy didn't have a food allergy. We will find out the results from this 2nd blood test early next week. Andy didn't cry at all when his blood was drawn. All the nurses were stunned.
I will say that I have a lot more sympathy for those who deal with food allergies. After only a few weeks I've come to realize how hard it is to avoid some of these foods, and how stressful it is trying to come up with foods to eat that he will eat that are safe for him. He ate a lot of hot dogs, french fries, oatmeal, and pop tarts for the last part of the trip, just because I knew they were safe and he would eat them. It's was so sad to not let him eat something that he really wanted, because it had egg in it. Hopefully the tests will come back negative, but if not, I'll definitely be talking to those of you who have had more experience with this stuff.
That seems like a good place to end for today. Thanks Wayne and Carol for an awesome time at the cabin, even though the rain thwarted all of your best plans.
Part Three will be focus on our visit to Holland, Michigan for Mike's 10 year college reunion.
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on Thursday, October 16, 2008 at 10:52 PM.
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