Dairy: the GOOD, the BAD, the UGLY

The end of August we took Alma off of dairy. We wanted to see if he had an issue with dairy. To support Jere stayed off dairy, mostly. On Saturday we put Alma back on dairy to see how he would do. Alma had lunch, dinner and snacks with dairy in them. Jere also had lunch, dinner and snacks with dairy in them. And I was stupid and had dinner with dairy.

THE GOOD: Alma  did great with dairy. Not a thing bothered him. We are more than 48 hours since his first dairy food and he still is doing great.


THE BAD: Jere got all congested. He felt better the next morning. So he is good with small amounts of dairy but not all day long.


THE UGLY:  I feel fine today but Saturday night and Sunday morning I felt like crap. Saturday night I regurgitating and throw up a couple of times ( but all at once). Sunday morning when I ate breakfast my stomach got tight. It was mad and still scared ( as if it has a mind of its own).  I had to eat crackers to calm it down. After getting non dairy foods in it I felt good. I've been so itchy, and I'm not looking forward to the break out that should be coming in a day or two.

I learned I probably will never be able to have dairy, so I need to stop trying. I really didn't think anything tasted that great, except the chili cheese dog. Our house will remain dairy free. Jere and Alma can have dairy when we eat out or at other people's houses.

What a Slacker

I can't believe i only blogged once in September. Lots has happened. We tilled the backyard and then planted seed. It is looking really good. It was long enough last Saturday for Jere to mow it for the first time. We've been to the zoo, played Soccer, and did 2nd grade photo shoot.

 

 

 

 

 

Flattening the backyard before seeding

Family photo from photo shoot

Perfect Heart

Today Alma had his appointment with the cardiologist. He was so nervous he laid perfectly still. They did an EKG and took his blood pressure in both arm and both legs. His EKG was perfect. He is a normal healthy boy. They listened to his heart and said it sounds like a text book stills murmur. I guess you never grow out of a murmur. You always have the murmur. What really happens is as you get older your chest wall gets thicker therefore harder to hear the murmur. It was funny the doctor turned sideways put his hand on his chest and then moved it out away from his chest. Demonstrating that you "out grow" it because you chest grows.

We were so excited. That was exactly what we wanted to hear. We know he had a murmur so the best news was it was just a harmless murmur. After the hospital we went to Cakewalk. Alma was getting cold and restless so we told him if he was good we would stop for a treat. He was great the rest of the time.

WELL CHECK UP

On Wednesday ( August 24th ) Alma had is well child check up. We talked to Dr. Dimick about changing Alma to a dairy free diet. We were curious if he needs to take any extra supplements. Dimick said that until adolescents you don't have to worry about calcium. We also talked about having an allergy test done to see if Alma needs an epi pen. The last thing we talked about was Alma's heart murmur. Dimick listened to his heart and said it still sounds the same, like a garden hose with a small nozzle on it. I was just curious how it was sounding. Dimick must have thought we wanted to do more. He wrote a prescription to see a cardiologist. He said just in case we want to. I thought it was in our hands to take further action. Shortly after we got home Primary Childrens called to schedule an appointment. I didn't want to be a bad mom and say, " No, We don't want to." So I set the appointment and had Jere check to make sure that the doctor is covered, he is:)

Krys went with us to the appointment and then to the new DI. As we were at the DI  I asked Krys what she thought we should do about Alma's heart. She said she wouldn't mess with the heart, it is worth it to get piece of mind. I asked Alma if he wants to get his heart checked and he said yes. So we were planning on scheduling with a cardiologist just not that soon. After the appointment was scheduled I was like well I guess we deal with the heart before the allergies. His appointment is September 6th.

Krys thought Dr. Dimick was cute. He was looking really good. Everyone who see Dimick "likes" him. Krys liked him so much she said he was going to be her pediatrician.

THE NUMBERS: I always thought Alma's growth spurts were in March or April, after his well child check up.  Because this one was on his half birthday we could chart his last growth spurt. He was 54% for his height and 21% for his weight. These numbers put together make his BMI in the 5%.  Dimick said you are the skinniest you will ever be between age 3 and 10. Alma is still on a nice growth curve. I was looking at the numbers from all the other well child check ups and noticed that Alma is getting taller faster than he is gaining weight. 
  His percentiles        Height:  age 4 14%                      Weight: age 4 24%
                                             age 5 32%                                   age 5 17%
                                             age 6  37%                                  age 6  18%
                                             age 7.5  54%                               age 7.5 21%

I guess he is playing catch up on his height. When he was born he was 95%


OFF TOPIC: Our old printed was having issues and wasn't working with Windows 7 so we had to get a new one. Kodak was doing $50 off a new printer if you recycled and old printer through Best Buy. We had our old  little Kodak printer that has been sitting in the garage over a year  that we took in. We wanted to sell it but knew we couldn't get much for it and no one wanted to buy it. There is no way we could've sold it for $50! We walked out of Best Buy with a nice new Kodak mega printer, ok not mega but a nice one. It prints, copies, and scans. My favorite part is that it can print nice pictures. I have missed printing my pictures at home.

THE FORT IS COMPLETE

It has been almost two months since we got Alma's fort and today we finally finished it. A week after getting it we had it set up and Alma could play on it. Last week Jere power washed to strip all the old stain and paint that the previous kids put on it. This week we stained/ painted it.

This shows the new tire swing Jere made today

HEALTHY AS AN OX

Monday (8-15-11) I got the lab results of my blood draw from the week before. They checked everything.  Kidney and liver function, blood sugar, thyroid, vitamin D,cholesterol,blood count and much more. Those are just the ones that Dr. Lym pointed out in his notes. There is also a line that says calcium, I assume that is the same thing I take my calcium chews for. ALL of my numbers are in the normal range, not one thing is too high or too low. 

I have been having fun with my results. I keep eating yummy things in front of Jere and saying" My triglycerides are normal so I can eat ANYTHING I want"  I keep eating what I normally eat, I must eat pretty healthy if all my levels are good. Getting all the good stuff ( vitamin D and Calcium) and not too much of the bad (cholesterol). It is nice to know that I'm perfectly healthy. Alot of things are both genetic and life style based. It looks like I have good genes and a pretty healthy life style.

Perfectly Anxious

I haven't been feeling that great lately so today I went to see Dr. Lym. I've had shortness of breath, chest pains, what I call the eternal side ache and other pains. He determined that it is anxiety. The shortness of breath is caused by anxiety. The chest pain and side ache are most likely acid reflux and anxiety can cause you to produce more acid. So he gave me some samples of a new drug for acid reflux, Dexilant. If that doesn't help in a couple of weeks I'm suppose to go back and then we will do some test to see what is causing the pain. I think it will help now that we know Jere isn't having heart surgery and I thought it might be acid reflux.

While there I also had them check my cholesterol. Since Jere got his I've been curious of what mine is. The nurse came in to take my blood. She had three tubes. I asked if they were all for cholesterol and she said no, Dr. Lym is doing a health panel on you. They check cholesterol, for diabetes, kidney and liver function, blood count and more. I should have the result by the end of next week. Dr. Lym will get the lab reports back and then write a letter and mail it to me. It will be good to see what those tests show.