How it began

Tonight begins hopefully the first of many to tell the story our journey with our daughters and with food allergies, asthma and eosinophilic esophagitis.  A few of my friends suggested I start a blog a long time ago and it probably would have been therapeutic.  It may still be and hopefully helps someone else out there who is going through it, too.

So both my kids are small, healthy but always been small.  From the time our first was born weight issues were well, issues.  Born at 6lbs 2oz, she promptly dropped to 5lbs 7oz and was a very fussy baby.  Through the years she has been low on the charts, then below the charts but it seems to be a pattern in my family.  Then came baby girl number 2...born 6lbs 14oz and left the hospital at her birth weight.  She nursed right away and gained well.  Still only in the 25th percentile but that was exciting for us!  She continued to do well until we started introduce solid foods at 6 months.  She loved them at first!  Gobbled down 3-4 jars at a time!  Then things started to change.

From 6 months to 15 months we struggled to get her to eat enough but there were "colds" (that I now know I accurately pinpointed at the time as allergies,) molars coming and a lot of fun summer activities.  Things would calm down in the fall.  Fall came and so did her 15 month appointment.  I had expressed my concerns about her feeding habits at her 12 month check but we were going to give it time.  Well, in the 3 months since that appointment, she had only gained 3 ounces and combined with her pattern of decline, was given the diagnosis of "failure to thrive."

Some of you know this feeling...the one when a doctor tells you your child is not growing right, developing right or whatever else comes to mind when you hear, "failure to thrive."  Failure to parent right?  Failure to know sooner where there was a problem?  Failure to miss the signs?  I just wanted answers and get on track.  The doctor suggested a feeding and swallowing evaluation at CHOP but before we made the appointment we got one other second opinion.  That doctor doubted she would be eating pizza if she has a swallowing issue and ran some bloodwork.

I will forever remember the moment I got that call.  I remember I was standing in my classroom on Back to School Night about to head downstairs to meet my new parents in 10 minutes (which actually forced me to stay calm while I listened to the doctor because I have only a few minutes before I stood in front of all those parents!.) The doctor himself called to tell me her test results were abnormal.  Her eosinophils were off the charts, 17 when 4 is high.  Eos-whats?  What does that mean?  He explained it was a white blood cell and the high numbers can be caused by everything from parasites to cancer.  Something was seriously wrong and we needed to find out what it was...and so it all began...