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Fall(ing Apart)

October 6, 2014 - 8:00 am | October 6, 2014 FPIES Reactions, Fructose Malabsorption, Living with Fructose Malabsorption, Living with Salicylate Sensitivity, Our Lives, Parenting

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Last year I wrote about how fall always makes me feel like cleaning the house; like it’s time for a fresh start.

Usually I do feel that way each fall.

Not this year, though.

Instead, this year I feel like I’m falling apart.

Physically, we’ve dealt with being sick for a few weeks now. Between the stomach bug that wiped out my family (and then took out my parents), and the cold/allergies that took root immediately after, well, it has not been fun, and there’s been no energy for my usual “fall renewal cleaning”.

In addition to those two nasty things, I’m feeling strained in other ways.

Early this summer, while at work, I started experiencing sharp, horrible pain in my right elbow.

It only happened when I did certain things with my arm, like gripping anything with my hand, and wasn’t constant.

By mid-August, though, the pain was constant. Still only when I did certain things with my arm, but I no longer got weeks or even days of reprieve.

Since we’re broke, I have been hesitant to go to the doctor. Going will cost $40 in a co-pay, and any testing the doctor recommends will end up costing us hundreds of dollars that we just don’t have.

Even if physical therapy is the only treatment, that will cost $40 co-pays. Heaven forbid if surgery is required! That would be thousands of dollars.

So I did some online investigating, and the most likely explanation was tennis elbow and/or golf elbow. (It actually seems like I have both at once.)

The medical advice for those ailments? Rest the arm, use ice and heat, and it will resolve on its own. If it doesn’t, go see the doctor.

So I did that, and also bought an arm brace for tennis elbow, and those helped. It didn’t eliminate the pain, but it knocked it down a few notches and made it easier to work.

The 3 days I was absolutely unconscious from the stomach bug seemed to help my arm quite a bit. I came out of the stomach bug fog feeling horrible, but happy to realize that I had NO pain in my right elbow at all!

One day of being active, though, and the pain returned…with a vengeance.

This week I gained a new pain: my left shoulder.

I think I just pulled a muscle somehow; whenever I extend my arm I feel a sharp stabbing pain all through the front of my left shoulder.

So really, I’m in perfect functioning health…as long as I don’t try to grip anything with my right hand or extend my left arm at all.

Try avoiding either of those activities with two kids. Or working as a Flight Attendant.

Riiiight.

Darrel isn’t faring much better. He has an old knee injury from the Army that has been flaring up with the weather changes and spends many nights unable to sleep because he can’t get comfortable with the pain.

Between the two of us, we just may have enough working parts to make one fully functioning person. Maybe.

I’m also feeling strained emotionally.

This stomach bug has dropped Zac’s current known safes down from our hard earned 11 foods to a measly 5 foods. (And yes, I realize that last year at this time I fantasized about having 5 foods…but going backwards just…)

We planned on continuing to feed him cauliflower and cucumber, but he’s refused those absolutely.

Last week his diapers returned to normal, thank God, but he is so congested in his nose that he isn’t sleeping well and is just miserable.

And we can’t re-trial foods when he’s not at 100% health.

So we’re in an FPIES holding pattern for now; worse, it’s a place we were at months ago.

We lost months of progress and traction in one fell swoop, and I’m disheartened, discouraged, and, frankly, ticked off.

Financially we’re feeling strained, too. On the 2nd, I looked over our budget for the month and asked Darrel, “Honey? Do you think we can make it the rest of the month without spending a dime?”

He laughed, until he realized…

I wasn’t actually joking.

We’ll figure something out; we always do. And I never forget God’s providence. I’ve been saved from many a financial disaster by the divinely timed arrived of funds from an unexpected place. Our bank accounts will survive somehow.

We’ll muddle through the physical pain, doing what little we can without medical intervention to manage the symptoms until funds are better and we can actually go to the doctor for help.

We will re-trial foods for Zac as soon as he returns to 100% health again, and hopefully we’ll discover that he didn’t actually lose any foods from the stomach bug. Hopefully he just had a sensitive tummy and couldn’t handle certain foods for a short while, but they’re still, overall, okay for him.

But it just feels like almost every aspect of our lives is just falling apart right now, and I’m tired, y’all.

Really tired.

On the plus side of things, being so tired and broke meant we didn’t have a lot of fresh ingredients in the kitchen and I didn’t have the desire to really put out a lot of effort in cooking last week.

Why is that a good thing?

Because poor Jed’s diet was entirely devoid of any food that is even remotely suspicious for fructose malabsorption or salicylate sensitivity.

It was a very boring diet; I’m talking “meat and potatos”-style here.

But he has been an absolute ANGEL all week!

Funny. Sweet. Loving. Brave. Smart. Teachable. Agreeable.

He’s the child I KNOW is in there, so often hidden by his food intolerances.

It’s so wonderful to spend time with Jed when he’s not reacting. He’s an amazing person!

This week he’s asked to do worksheets to practice handwriting and finally answers correctly every time when we ask him to count to 10 (he’s known how to do it for ages now, he simply refused to cooperate when we asked for proof).

For the first time, he’s shown an interest in learning his alphabet and spelling.

When Jed is off fructose and sals, I look at him and think “Man, one day he’s going to be one helluva good husband and father. He’s just a good person.”

When he’s ON fructose and sals, I want to pull my hair out in frustration and I worry about his future.

It’s a stupendous transformation.

So I guess not everything is falling apart. Unless you count the fact that obviously, we haven’t truly figured out Jed’s diet yet (even two years into this) if we were able to see such a noticeable transformation this week.

(shaking it off)

Whatever. I’m going to hold on to the sweetness that is Jed.

A Mama’s gotta have something, right?

__________

I wrote this post before bed last night. A few hours later, Zac woke up to nurse. As he finished nursing and rolled over, he suddenly leapt up in bed, screaming, rubbing his eyes vigorously.

I tried to get him to lay down and nurse again, but he refused be held or calmed. Finally I grabbed him and ran to the living room to look at his eyes.

They were swollen shut.

His eyelashes had turned completely under; I couldn’t see them at all. (And if you’ve noticed from any of his many photographs here, he has astoundingly long eyelashes.)

I screamed for Darrel, thinking “Dear God, he’s having an IgE reaction.” without having any idea what he could be reacting TO.

When Darrel came out, we quickly decided to give him a dose of dipenydramine (Benadryl).

Zac has never had dipenhydramine before, so we were risking an FPIES reaction to it

But if he was truly having an IgE reaction, we had to risk the FPIES reaction.

We grabbed the allergy kits with the Epi-pens and dipenhydramine and gave him a dose.

By coincidence, I had been texting with a fellow FPIES mama while nursing Zac, and since I’d just disappeared from the conversation and I knew she would understand what we were dealing with, I sent her a quick message saying Zac’s eyes had swollen shut.

She asked if I had taken a picture. I hadn’t. But that suddenly seemed like a very good idea for documentation purposes.

So about 4-5 minutes after the dose of dipenhydramine, Zac’s eyes looked like this:

Not too bad, right? But that’s a WHOLE lot better than they looked before.

Before the dipenhydramine, he couldn’t open his eyes at all. A few minutes after this photo, he was able to open his eyes.

Dipenhydramine works fast, y’all.

But he was still screaming, rubbing his eyes viciously, and not actually acting like he was getting much better.

So I called the on-call nurse at his pediatricians office.

During the course of the phone call, Zac quieted. He stopped screaming. He stopped rubbing his eyes as much.

One problem of having a child with complicated medical issues like Zac is that when you call the average on-call nurse, she has no idea what his issues are or what complicating factors could be in play.

However, upon hearing that he hadn’t eaten anything new, that none of the sheets or clothing I was wearing were different, that he hadn’t played outside that day, and that he had a cold the last week or so, she decided that he was probably just experiencing his cold morphing into his eyes.

She suggested I might see eye drainage in the morning, and encouraged me to keep an eye on him overnight and re-evaluate in the morning. If his eyes still seem to be a problem, I’m to call his pediatrician and see if we can arrange some sort of safe eye drops for him.

Zac finally fell asleep on the couch. I’ve been watching him breathe ever since.

I’m still a nervous wreck.

Anything that even HINTS at being an anaphylactic reaction scares the life out of me.

The nurse is probably right. It’s probably just that his eyes suddenly started experiencing the cold his nose has suffered with, and the vigorous rubbing didn’t help matters.

But I think I won’t feel calm and certain until we get him checked out by an allergist. I’ll probably arrange for both boys to be seen at Jed’s annual allergic check-up this year.

Seriously. Falling apart here.

Practical Preserving: How to Dehydrate Eggs

October 3, 2014 - 8:00 am | October 3, 2014 Practical Preserving, Real Food

1 Comment

Earlier this summer, my parents had a chicken crisis.

Several of their laying hens disappeared; sadly, free-range chickens occasionally become predator snacks. Compounding the issue, one of their remaining hens became broody. Instead of laying her eggs and walking away, she decided she was ready to actually be a Mom.

That’s great, of course! More little baby chicks running around is a good thing.

Except when you’re already down half a flock.

No one ate eggs for about two months this summer except Zac, and even for him I had to be judicious with his consumption.

All that to say, I suddenly had a strong survival interest in ways to preserve eggs. Once the egg production increased again, I intended to find ways to “set eggs by” so that IF we ever faced a drop in egg production, none of us – but especially not Zac – would have to worry that we’d run out of one of his few, vital safe foods.

I’ve read that freezing eggs is wonderful, but with two full sized freezers and one small freezer (not to mention the one attached to my fridge in the house) already chock full of blueberries, cauliflower, chicken, and beef, well…I just don’t have enough room for more frozen foods!

So I figured I’d give dehydrated eggs a try.

It’s pretty simple to do, actually. I read several websites about dehydrating eggs, and two basic methods were presented. The “cook-dry” method, where you cook the scrambled eggs and then dehydrate them, and the “wet-dry” method, where you just dehydrate raw, uncooked egg.

Since every website – and every comment on those websites – said the wet-dry method was better, I saved myself the trouble and started there.

Here’s what you do:

Crack the eggs into your blender. Blend until smooth.

Pour the egg onto silpat sheets on your dehydrator tray. Don’t pour too much or it will overflow!

Set the temperature at 145 degrees and turn the machine on.

About 8 hours later, you’ll have this:

When you gently swipe it with your fingers, it turns into this:

Then toss it back into your blender and process until it’s a fine powder. You can skip this step, if you like; however, blending the crumbles into a powder is apparently crucial to making sure your reconstituted eggs don’t taste grainy and…off. Try it both ways if you’re curious.

I used 6 eggs, and wound up with about 1/2 cup of egg powder.

Ta-da! You’ve got dehydrated eggs.

Now, to use these eggs, everything I read suggests that 1 T. of the powder plus 2 T. of water equals to one egg.

That seemed strange to me, since I know I started with 6 eggs but wound up with 8 T. of egg powder.

For that reason, I used 1 T. plus 1 tsp. per reconstituted egg.

Once I added the 2 T. of water, I whisked it together with a cute little baby whisk.

Looks like eggs, doesn’t it?

Then I scrambled them up.

The verdict?

Not bad.

Not great, either.

They taste just like eggs, and I didn’t note any of the graininess so often reported on dehydrating egg posts, but they just weren’t as fluffy as freshly scrambled eggs.

Then I remembered one tiny little comment I’d read somewhere that recommended using MILK instead of water to reconstitute the eggs.

I gave it a shot with our goat milk.

BINGO! We have eggs!

They still weren’t as good as freshly scrambled eggs, but they were a far sight better than the ones reconstituted with water.

Now, whether using milk or water to reconstitute the eggs, the trick to remember is to mix the powder and the liquid together – and then let it sit for at least 5 minutes before cooking.

I followed the allotted 5 minute rule each time, so I can’t tell you what will happen if you don’t let the mixture sit for 5 minutes, but that’s the rule I read everywhere I looked.

If you’re brave enough to rush things, let me know what dire consequences present, okay?

In summary, I don’t think I’d dehydrate eggs just for the taste of it. Fresh eggs will always taste better when cooked.

But rehydrated egg powder isn’t horrible, and will certainly allow me to set eggs by in case of another flock emergency.

This trick will come in handy for those who travel and would like to have a guaranteed source of safe eggs while on the road, and while I haven’t yet tried it, everyone – even those who didn’t like the cooked dehydrated eggs – said the egg powder worked just fine in baked goods.

So there you have it. If eggs are safe for you, but you seek out (or have your own) free-range eggs, go ahead and dehydrate them.

They’re perfect for baking, traveling, and for those times when the girls just aren’t laying.

Oh, and for storage? The standard food storage rules apply. Remove as much air as possible, and store in a cool, dark place.

I’ve read that dehydrated eggs in a plain old Ziploc will keep for up to a year; if properly stored with vacuum sealing, they apparently can keep for up to 5 years (or longer, depending on who you ask!).

I don’t think I need to fret about storing dried eggs for that long. I just want to make sure we don’t run out of eggs during a temporary shortage.

So give dehydrated eggs a try! You may be surprised!

Happy Preserving!

Have you dehydrated eggs before? How did it work out for you? What’s your favorite method of storing eggs?

__________

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Practical Preserving: How to Make Cucumber Chips

October 2, 2014 - 8:00 am | October 9, 2014 Practical Preserving, Real Food, Tutorials

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Since yesterdays recipe used some dehydrated cucumber, I figured I may as well share how to make your own dehydrated cucumber chips.

Like the dehydrated basil, this is ridiculously simple.

Grab some cucumbers and slice them fairly evenly.

Some people like to toss their cucumbers with some oil and seasonings. Sea salt is always popular, but I’ve read of people experimenting with all sorts of flavorings: garlic and onion powder, but even things like cayenne pop up on occasion.

You don’t need any of that, though, but feel free to experiment!

Take those lovely cucumber slices (seasoned or not) and lay them out on a dehydrator tray.

Toss it in the dehydrator and set the temperature for 125 degrees Fahrenheit.

Turn it on and 8-12 hours later (depending on humidity in the air), you’ll have yummy cucumber chips!

These are really very good to snack on as they are.

And they’re very easy to use in recipes, as the Cucumber Cauliflower Soup recipe shows.

I’ve also tossed some dried slices in my water glass for a little extra flavor.

All in all, though, these are best just eaten plain. Talk about a healthy alternative to potato chips!

Of course, you’ll need to store them properly to make sure they stay nice and crisp.

If you have a vacuum sealer, this is a great time to use it. If you don’t, use a Ziploc and suck out as much air as possible.

Happy Preserving!

What seasonings do you like to add to your cucumber chips?

__________

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Vegan Cucumber-Cauliflower Soup

October 1, 2014 - 8:00 am | October 9, 2014 Dairy Free, Dinner, Fructose Free, Gluten Free, Real Food, Recipes, Soup, Soup, Soy Free, Top 8 Allergy Free

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Once the stomach bug left, taking with it many of Zac’s safe foods (hopefully temporarily), I found myself trying to find a way to get him to eat cauliflower and cucumber.

Despite wolfing them both down with gusto when we first introduced them in trials, he has since become rather picky and refuses anything with cucumber in it, and most things with cauliflower (unless I hide it well).

Since his diet has been reduced so much, I really wanted him to continue eating those two healthy, nutritious vegetables.

A friend suggested making a soup of some kind with the cucumber, so I went to the internet to find a recipe.

A quick glance through the top five recipes for cucumber soup was discouraging; every one of them called for far more ingredients than are currently safe for Zac.

Even condensing my search by adding “vegan” to the terms brought discouragement. Every one of those recipes called for adding avocado. Avocado hasn’t been trialed yet, so that’s not an option for us.

Not for nothing, though, am I an FPIES cooking mama! I know that to achieve a creamy soup base, I can use cauliflower instead of avocado!

Do you know what you get when you Google “vegan cucumber cauliflower soup”?

NADA.

Not one single recipe.

(Though, I’m assuming THIS recipe will now pop up if anyone chooses to search those terms!)

So I made my own cucumber-cauliflower soup recipe, and it turned out rather well!

Now, I didn’t actually make this vegan, since I used chicken broth as my base. But if you’re looking for a cucumber soup recipe with no dairy (and no avocado), use my recipe and simply use vegetable broth instead.

Here’s how to make it:

Dump two cups of broth in a pot. I had frozen broth, and it was still halfway frozen when I tossed it in. That worked fine.

Add the cauliflower and cucumber and some sea salt.

I was pretty tired (still a little sick, actually), so I didn’t feel like chopping up fresh cucumber. I used some dehydrated cucumber chips. May I just say: if you don’t feel like snacking on your dehydrated cucumber chips, this is an excellent way to use them!

But fresh would work great, too.

You can use frozen or fresh cauliflower, too.

Turn on the heat to medium, put a lid on it, and let it cook for about 30-45 minutes, until vegetables are soft and tender.

Take the soup off the heat and either use an immersion blender to puree it, or dump it in a blender (carefully – it’s hot!) and process until smooth.

Ta-da! You have soup!

Now, this is a VERY basic recipe. It tastes okay as-is, but it’s very “cucumber-y” and could really benefit from some seasonings.

I can’t experiment with seasonings at this point for Zac, but I still wanted to share this because it is a unique twist on a cucumber soup.

Most cucumber soup recipes call for the addition of garlic and/or onion, some lime juice, and I’ve seen some that go in other directions with savory herbs added.

So take this base recipe and add seasonings to taste for yourself. If you’re hesitant, you can season one bowl at a time until you find a flavor combination that appeals to you.

I hope this helps meet some needs: a non-avocado, possibly vegan cucumber soup, and a way to use up some of those excess cucumbers in your garden!

Oh, and Zac? Refuses to eat the soup.

That’s okay, though, because I like it.

Happy cooking!

(By the way, the prep time in the recipe may be off by quite a bit for some of you. It depends on whether you use frozen, fresh, or dehydrated ingredients in the soup!)

Vegan Cucumber-Cauliflower Soup

Prep time

15 mins

Cook time

45 mins

Total time

1 hour

This is a rich, creamy cucumber soup just packed with nutrition! Add seasonings to taste for your own unique creation.

Author: Cradle Rocking Mama (Carrie Summers)

Recipe type: dinner, soup

Serves: 3 cups

Ingredients

2 c. broth (chicken, or vegetable to make this vegan)
1 c. fresh or frozen cauliflower florets
1½ c. fresh cucumber slices (or ½ ounce of dehydrated cucumber slices)
1 tsp. sea salt
seasonings to taste

Instructions

Put all ingredients in a soup pot and set on medium heat.
Cover and cook for 30-45 minutes.
Use an immersion blender (or pour carefully into a regular blender) and process until smooth.
Serve and enjoy!

What seasonings do you like to add to cucumber soup?

__________

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More Tips to Make Life Bearable When Your Whole Family is Sick

September 30, 2014 - 8:00 am | September 29, 2014 Our Lives, Parenting

MORE TIPS TO MAKE LIFE BEARABLE WHEN YOUR WHOLE FAMILY IS SICK

Really, I can’t overstate it. At the first sign of sickness, get caught up on laundry. At least sheets, towels, and washrags.
It’s okay, though, to ignore folding the cleaned laundry when you’re sick.
When you start to get better, it’s okay to sit on the floor in front of the dryer to fold the neglected laundry if you’re too weak to contemplate carrying a laundry basket full of clothes to another room or even stand for long enough to fold them.
I’ll repeat this little gem, too: it’s also really important to clean the kitchen before everyone gets too sick.
When you’re done cleaning the kitchen, make life better for you for when you’re on the mend: fill the sink with soapy water when you first get sick so your dishes are soaking while you’re delirious. Your weakened body will be grateful for less scrubbing when it’s time to tackle the dishes once the sick fog lifts.
Do yourself a favor and just pre-make “sick food” to keep in the freezer, ready to thaw and heat at a moments notice. Make enough for everyone for at least a week. (Trust me, that’s not nearly as much food as you would think when you’re sick.)
Tidy up your house. Pick up toys and clutter off the living room floor, and, as a dear reader pointed out in a comment on yesterdays post, make sure you remove anything valuable, irreplaceable, or difficult to clean and put those items in an isolated place before anything happens to them. (Thanks, Lora!)
Stock all your bathrooms with extra toilet paper at the first sign of sickness.
Keep plastic buckets around to put by the beds to collect vomit. This is probably old news to most of you, but I’ve managed to make it over 4 years as a mother without needing this advice (even with FPIES)! I wish I’d heard it before I needed it.
Whatever room you will be spending the most time in while sick should be prepped at the earliest possible moment. If it’s the living room, cover your couch in towels or extra blankets. Your upholstery will thank you after the first inadvertent vomit.
If you’re on an elimination diet for your kiddos food allergies or intolerances, you will find yourself craving foods that are absolutely not on your diet when you start to regain your appetite. This may well be the most difficult time of your TED; stay strong, though! You can resist the siren call of dangerous food so you don’t wreck all those months of self-discipline. This is much easier to do if you have “sick food” ready to go in the freezer, though. (After over 2 years on my TED, I nearly lost my resolve last week and would have begged desperately for certain junk food items I used to regularly eat when I was sick pre-kids. Fortunately we were all too sick to go to the store and live too far away for any deliveries.)
When everyone gets better, the only surefire way to sterilize your house is with bleach, hydrogen peroxide, or boiling water. I went with boiling water and peroxide. Fewer chemicals that way.
When everyone gets better, be sure to sterilize your house. Doorknobs, light switchplates, cabinet handles, and toys are absolute musts to sterilize.

I’m sure there are more things people could think of in terms of “being sick tips”, but that’s all I’ve got at the moment.

There is little worse than when your whole family is sick. But if you remember to take action at the first sign of illness, at least it won’t completely wreck your house and routine.

One good thing I discovered this week, is that there’s no limit to the number of times I will be amused by Jed telling me “Mommy! I have a Bless You!” When what he means is “Mommy! I sneezed (or have a runny nose)!”

As awful as it is to have everyone in the family sick, somehow, going through it with family?

Is so much better than going through it alone.

Do you have any additional tips you’ve discovered along the way when your family is sick? Please share!

Norovirus…And a Cold?

September 29, 2014 - 8:00 am | September 29, 2014 Food Trials, FPIES Reactions, Our Lives, Parenting

14 Comments

Well.

What. A. Week.

I wrote the last post Sunday night before bed, scheduled it to post bright and early the next morning, and went to sleep.

Unlike Saturday night, Sunday night Zac would not/could not sleep without me laying right next to him.

Preferably with a boobie in his mouth.

At 2:50 a.m., Jed woke up next to us in bed and began vomiting.

He vomited again 20 minutes later.

Then again an hour after that.

With all that fun sick kiddo stuff going on, I just didn’t have the time to go in and edit the post (where I asked for your prayers) to reflect the fact that it did already appear that we had actually gotten hit with a stomach bug.

I spent the day taking care of kiddos, of course, but was steadily typing an update post into my phone every chance I got when…

The stomach bug got ME.

Monday night I started vomiting. Unlike the boys, my norovirus experience wasn’t limited to vomiting. I suffered from diarrhea, stomach cramps, chills, and body aches as well.

Fun stuff, lemme tell ya.

Seriously, the only people in the world I would wish this on are Hitler, Mengele , Pol Pot, Stalin, and maybe a few living politicians I won’t name because I’m sure I’d offend someone.

It was quite terrible. One of the worst sicknesses I’ve ever endured in my life.

As of Wednesday night, I stopped having the chills. By Thursday night, I still had the other highly unpleasant symptoms, but I also hadn’t eaten anything since Monday morning. (Well, nothing that hadn’t made me immediately clench in pain.)

I could no longer figure out if I was sick or just starving.

Mashed potatos finally did the trick; I only ate about 1/3 c. of some mashed potatos before my stomach started rebelling, but it didn’t make me sick. Just more of my stomach saying “Whoa! You expect me to work, lady?”

So that was a huge improvement.

Darrel had been holding down the fort, for the most part single-handedly, but he also struggled with stomach cramps and body aches and finally, on Wednesday night, he succumbed, too.

Fortunately, though we both still feel like death warmed over, we’re slowly on the upswing. (Not in time to save my paycheck for September, but that’s another issue entirely!) I still feel weak, get dizzy frequently, and have a strange sensation in my tummy sometimes, and my body is still terribly sore from the severe clenching it did during the chills, but I’m getting better every day.

Hopefully I’ll be well enough to go to work this week. I’d hate to go to work in a weakened condition and wind up sick with something else!

Not that I needed it, but I managed to lose almost 7 more pounds this week. Percentage-wise, that’s about the same that Zac lost from his tummy bug, right?

So, on the plus side, it appears we were hit with the norovirus.

On the negative, we were hit with the norovirus.

But I still don’t know if we’re out of the woods for FPIES or not.

A couple of Zac’s diapers from Monday and Tuesday tested positive for blood, so I don’t know what to think about that. Inflammation from the stomach bug? Residual leftovers from a combined FPIES/stomach bug reaction?

And since the boys have gotten better (because really, you’d hardly even know they had been sick from the way they bounced back – unlike their parents), Zac had a disturbing moment where he ate a nice, big bowl of banana ice cream, and an hour later got hiccups.

About half an hour after that, he almost vomited.

I could hear the vomit coming up his esophagus; his eyes got big and wide, and he started swallowing rapidly. So he didn’t vomit.

But his body was trying to.

An hour or so after that, he cried and cried, and finally answered ‘yes’ when I asked him if his tummy had an owie. His little stomach was rock hard.

And no, we haven’t re-started oats yet.

One common lament I’ve read over the last two+ years on the boards from other FPIES Mama’s is “Can a child LOSE safe foods after a stomach bug?!”

The answer is always a resounding – and sad – YES.

So we may have lost one or more of our safe foods thanks to this horrendous virus.

Please, God, if we have lost a safe food, please make it NOT be bananas!

Zac loves his bananas.

And I love the ability to hide other foods in his bananas for trials.

His poops haven’t again tested positive for blood since Tuesday, but none of them have looked very good. Soft and mushy and full of mucous…it’s clear his tummy is not back to 100%, no matter how good his behavior.

Before we can do anything else, we have to get back to baseline.

So for now, we’ve dropped his diet down. He now eats quinoa, goat milk, eggs, chicken and sea salt. We’re still trying to feed him cauliflower and cucumber, but he has so far refused any foods I’ve hidden those two things in.

The rest of his safe foods will require a re-trial before moving on.

So we won’t get around to re-trialing oats until…somewhere around November.

bad words bad words very very bad words

In case I haven’t mentioned it, I really, REALLY hate stomach bugs.

Oh, and to make things even more fun?

The boys bounced back almost instantly from their respective vomiting episodes…but each came down with sneezing, runny noses, and coughs within a day of getting better.

My Mom heard that and warned me about an uncommon respiratory virus she’d heard about on the news that has hospitalized one baby in our area. It’s EV-D68, and guess what?

It has symptoms almost exactly like a cold, or the lingering remains of a stomach bug. Body aches, sneezing, cough, runny nose, and possible fever.

Those are the mild symptoms, though; the severe cases go into respiratory distress, almost like an asthma attack.

So we’ve been watching the boys for any signs of labored breathing all week.

You know, in between vomiting, racing to the toilet, and shivering in bed.

Seriously. I would only wish this crap on the likes of Hitler. For reals.

On the plus side, I learned some more tips on how to make life bearable when your whole family is sick, and I’ll be sharing those with you tomorrow! (Gotta be a bright side, right?)

So…how was your week? Have your kids ever lost foods after a stomach bug? How did it happen? Did you have to stop trialing for a while or actually re-trial all your safe foods?

A Horrible Weekend

September 22, 2014 - 8:00 am | September 21, 2014 Food Trials, FPIES Reactions, Living With FPIES, Our Lives, Parenting

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I’m a wreck.

Friday afternoon we drove to my parents house. After a fun afternoon fishing in their pond, Darrel and I left the boys with Grandma and PopPop and came home for some alone time.

Very early the next morning, the phone rang.

It was my Mom, calling to tell us that Zac had vomited every 20-30 minutes since 4:30 a.m.

Darrel left to bring the boys home.

On the drive home, Zac projectile vomited bile at least once.

Once home, he snuggled next to me in bed and nursed. Half an hour later, he vomited all over the bed.

After getting us and the bed cleaned up, he nursed again; this time he fell asleep and laid with me in bed for a few hours.

He woke up and we settled him in on the couch while I made myself some food.

A few minutes later he vomited again.

It absolutely rips me apart to watch either of my boys in pain. Zac just sat there, covered in vomit, moaning and whimpering. Sheer agony for both of us.

Darrel took him to take a bath, thinking some hydrotherapy might make him feel a tad better.

It did, but he still got out of the tub whimpering and lethargic.

He went back to the couch and slept for a few more hours.

Throughout it all, whether awake or sleeping, he was pretty much attached to boobies the whole time. Total comfort nursing.

I didn’t mind; it was the best way to make sure he stayed hydrated.

If Zac was awake on Saturday, he wanted to be held. And even after sleeping most of the day, he went right to sleep at bedtime.

He ate nothing all day long. He only nursed and drank water.

Darrel and I spent the day in a state of debate and confusion. Was this a stomach bug (norovirus) or an FPIES reaction to the oats?

Here are the complicating issues for us:

Friday night I had been nauseous. But I wanted to finish reading an eBook on my phone before we got home, and reading in the car often makes me feel nauseous. The nausea left within an hour of being home.

The whole week of the oats trial, every poopy diaper I changed of his was soft, mushy, and had more mucous than typical. Darrel, on the other hand, got lucky. Every poopy diaper HE changed was perfectly normal.

Also during that week, Zac had reddish, sunken rings around his eyes. BUT…his sleep was thrown off quite a bit this week due to strange nap times and last minute scheduling stuff. So maybe he was just not rested enough and that explains the eyes.

My Dad was nauseous after Zac woke up vomiting. But Daddy is like me, and when stressed, his stomach tends to go haywire. Worrying about his Grandson might explain his nausea.

As you can see, things were far from clear on Saturday.

I sent a message to his speech therapist, apologizing for bothering her on a weekend, but asking if any other kids at therapy were sick this week. If so, I could add more weight to the norovirus theory.

Unfortunately she reported that all the kids in therapy this week were healthy as could be. Of course, she couldn’t vouch for any of their siblings health, but the kids scheduled for therapy were all present and at 100%.

So Darrel and I prayed hard for something that most people would be horrified to imagine praying for: we prayed that the rest of our family would start puking our toenails up in the next 24 hours.

If we all got sick, then Zac almost certainly picked up the norovirus somewhere, and he was NOT having an FPIES reaction to oats.

If we didn’t, well, if could still be the norovirus…but it wouldn’t be likely. Stomach bugs are highly contagious, so odds are that we would all get it if one member of the family got it.

So if none of us got sick, then that’s a pretty good bet that FPIES is still hanging around.

And it means that after 10 straight safe food trials, we faced our first unsafe food.

So we prayed for the unthinkable…and waited.

We also implemented some of the lessons I learned about how to make life bearable when your whole family is sick, just in case. We washed all the sheets and linens, cleaned the kitchen, and tidied up the house.

Saturday night Zac slept really well, and Sunday he slowly but surely began bouncing back.

By early evening, he was running and playing, rough-housing with his brother, and pretty much back to normal.

Except for his poops.

He had three yesterday. The first was…okay. Not great. Stinky. More mucous than normal.

The second was almost solid liquid and mucous and smelled awful.

The third was better formed, but had HUGE clumps of mucous.

At that point, it had been 36 hours since he first started vomiting, and not one other member of the family had shown any further signs of nausea.

It was with heart heavy with sadness that I began to prepare dinner.

It seemed my 50/50 proposition had shifted. Now it looked more like 90/10 that Zac still has FPIES.

By bedtime, no one had shown any signs of norovirus.

I’ve heard some people say it took almost a week to get sick from the stomach bug from other family members. But usually it only takes a few days.

So, we still don’t know. FPIES or norovirus?

All I know is that on his Sunday weigh in, Zac lost two full pounds in weight.

And I didn’t fully appreciate how hopeful and optimistic I had been feeling about Zac outgrowing FPIES until the potential for that was taken away.

I feel a burden on my shoulders I haven’t felt in a while.

It felt good to just be stressed about work, scheduling, and trying to balance food intolerances.

Being stressed about FPIES reactions is a level of stress that is hard to describe.

I feel like I aged about ten years this weekend.

Even if it turns out to just be a stomach bug that caused the vomiting, this was an absolutely horrible weekend.

I guess time will tell.

Practical Preserving: How to Dehydrate Basil

September 19, 2014 - 8:00 am | September 19, 2014 Practical Preserving, Real Food

1 Comment

Every once in a while I have a thought or idea to share that I talk myself out of; it seems like such a simple, “everyone knows this” thing that I’m afraid it would be an insult to make into a whole post!

But then I remember the comments I’ve read on FPIES message boards that say things like “Help! I now have to make everything from scratch for my baby to eat and I seriously have trouble boiling water!”

So maybe the simple things aren’t a waste of time to share.

Maybe they’re actually really helpful for people very new to the world of real food and cooking.

At least, that’s what I hope.

Because today’s Practical Preserving tip is insanely simple: how to dehydrate basil.

Of course, you have to start with basil. My basil plants have produced enough for us to last a whole year, so I strongly recommend growing basil.

You can buy fresh basil, though, so if you’ve got some fresh basil about to go bad in your fridge, don’t let it spoil! Save it by drying it.

If you’re growing it, go harvest it.

As for harvesting, some places recommend just plucking off leaves as you need it. That’s great for just dressing up a single meal, but what I’ve always done is clip stems. This nets us maximum basil yield and encourages the plant to grow bigger.

If you look at a basil plant, it grows by making a stalk with a pair of leaves on either side at regular intervals.

Simply snip the stalk right ABOVE a pair of leaves. Each of those leaves will turn into a new stalk with leaves growing on it.

It kind of reminds me of a family tree diagram, actually. It just keeps going like that until the season ends and the plant bolts and goes to seed.

So, you’ve got the basil. Now go rinse it (to get any bugs or dirt off it) in the sink, and pluck the leaves off the stem.

You really don’t want stems in your dried basil; they’ll make it taste bitter.

Lay those lovely, washed leaves out on a dehydrator tray.

Single layer is best, but if you also have basil plants that are going nutso in your garden, you can double layer it and it will work just fine.

Toss them in the dehydrator and set the temp for 95 degrees. Turn it on, and 8-16 hours later (depending on how many layers you had to do and the humidity in the air) you’ll have dried basil leaves!

At that point, I just grab all the leaves and toss them in a ziploc bag. When I have enough dried basil, I squish the bag around with my hands to start breaking up the leaves some, and use my vacuum sealer to store them for long term storage.

When I’m ready to actually use the basil, I either continue to break them up with my hands, or, if they’re being stubborn, use a mortar and pestle or a clean coffee grinder to make it look like the store-bought dried basil.

See? Simple!

If you don’t have a dehydrator, you could simply hang your basil upside down to dry it. I’ve never done that (only because I have a dehydrator and – until last year – always had cats that would have used the drying herbs as a play toy) but in everything I’ve read it works just fine. It’ll simply take a lot longer to dry out completely.

If you hang your basil to dry, don’t pluck the leaves off first. Just hang the whole stem and pick the leaves off when they actually dry out.

So there you have it: how to dry basil. It’s easy, it’s quick, and it’s terribly satisfying to use your own garden basil year-round!

Happy Preserving!

Brown Thumb Gardener: End of Summer Update

September 18, 2014 - 8:00 am | September 18, 2014 Brown Thumb Gardener

1 Comment

It’s been quite a while since I posted anything about the gardening efforts this year. Summer suddenly seemed to start racing by sometime in mid-July, and I’ve been playing catch up in the garden ever since.

Honestly, the garden wasn’t the huge success I’d hoped it would be. Oh, it wasn’t a failure by any stretch, but gardens, like children, need regular attention. Being away at work for days at a time really crimped my efforts at encouraging the garden to grow. Maintenance was even a stretch for the most part.

Basil, fortunately, is very independent and hearty! Those bushes have provided enough basil for us to last a whole year!

Every time I go outside, I’m amazed at how lush and full those bushes are. They seem to almost double in size overnight!

My pole beans and cucumbers continue to grow, despite some iffy watering patterns while I was away and the continuing infestation of spider mites.

Unlike the potatos, the cucumbers and beans have managed to attract predator bugs, which I believe has saved the plants from total devastation.

I’ve used onion water spray to deter the nasty little mites with great success; unfortunately, such organic methods of pest control have one big drawback compared to chemical methods…they have to be done regularly!

With my work schedule, ‘regular’ just isn’t going to happen in my garden! One of the biggest problems with consistent onion water spraying is simply that I’d run out of the mix, and then fall behind on making more.

Surely the onion concoction would keep in the freezer, right? I’m thinking I could make up batches of it in late winter and early spring (when the freezer is nearly empty), freeze it, and then when summer comes next year I would have pre-made spider mite deterrent on hand.

Well, it’s worth a try, anyway.

Even with the slacking off on spraying (and even watering), the climbers have continued to climb.

Remember when I pulled up one of my cucumber plants unwittingly? I immediately tried to re-plant the root, and at first, it didn’t appear to work. Over time, though, that little cucumber took off like a champ!

The leaves that were already on the plant when I pulled it up did die, but it quickly blossomed new leaves and buds, and is happily producing cucumbers for us.

All of my climbers, as a matter of fact, have grown taller than I’d ever dreamed. They’re growing IN my rain gutters now!

You can see, though, where the leaves at the bottom are brown and dying. That’s erratic watering and spider mite damage. Still, the top of the plants continue to look lush and full, and continue to produce beans and cucumbers for us.

The carrots grew amazingly well. It’s time to go ahead and dig them up; they’re getting a little overgrown at this point.

That will make Jed happy! He’s wanted to dig up the carrots for months now!

The beets I planted did not, unfortunately, do anything at all. No sprouts, no leaves, no sign of life at all.

I’m kind of disappointed about that.

Our resident web spinning spider, however, has gotten downright fat! She’s caught so many bugs in her web her growth has continued quite well.

We’ve had a cold snap this week, and I fear my summer gardening days are over. Since I didn’t get a fall garden in, I may well be done for the year.

Well, except for anything I manage to grow on my greenhouse front porch.

That’s a little disappointing, but not nearly the bad news I worried it would be. Zac is passing foods well at this point, and the sweet potatos he eats are not anything special; just regular old organic health food co-op potatos.

With luck, he may be able to tolerate regular store bought stuff this winter.

I learned a lot this summer, though, and plan to continue gardening.

It’s so satisfying to grow your own foods! Spending time in the garden was very relaxing for me this summer (when I could do it; I now understand why the school year has a summer break!).

All in all, I’m pleased with my summer gardening efforts.

But I’ll do better next year.

I think my brown thumbs are finally starting to turn green.

How did your garden do this year? If you’re a brilliant gardener, please share any of your best tips!

2 Ingredient Cookies

September 17, 2014 - 8:00 am | September 16, 2014 Cookie, Dessert, Egg Free, Fructose Free, Gluten Free, Real Food, Recipes, Soy Free, Top 8 Allergy Free

2 Comments

…and what to do with leftover oatmeal!

Since we’re trialing oats right now, and Zac has gotten used to eating cookie-like items every day, I knew there had to be a way to make oatmeal cookies for him.

After all, he’s got eggs, goat milk, goat milk butter, and quinoa to add to the oats, so surely a cookie could be had, right?

Only…I really thought it would be extra nice if BOTH boys could eat the cookies. With Jed’s IgE to egg to consider, that made matters a bit more tricky.

Fortunately, the Simple Veganista had a solution: bananas! (And she was inspired by the Burlap Bag, who, I discovered after making these a few times, makes them almost exactly the way I did! I missed the credit the first time I read the Simple Veganista’s recipe; this is why you should always read the original inspiration recipe in a blog – you’ll always learn something new and find a new blog to follow!)

Anyway, both boys can eat bananas! The only downside is that in order for both boys to eat the cookies, I have to use Zac’s special bananas in the recipe. Good thing I ordered 100 pounds of them last time, right?

So here it is:

Mash up the bananas in a bowl. The Simple Veganista says to use 2 ripe bananas; since we use tiny little Mysore (apple) bananas, I use 5 or 6 of those, depending on the size.

We also have to freeze all our bananas so they don’t spoil. Thawing them out and then mashing them works, but once I didn’t have enough time to let them thaw completely so I dumped them in the VitaMix. Frozen, pureed bananas worked just fine!

Then add the oats. Stir it together well, and ta-da! You have cookie batter!

At this point, you could get creative. The inspiration recipe calls for 4 ingredients: banana, oats, chocolate chips, and cinnamon. So you could add those, as well as any other add-ins you would like. Coconut flakes, vanilla, raisins, and walnuts all come to my mind. (Just remember to use ingredients that are safe for your dietary needs, of course!)

I scooped the batter on the parchment lined cookie sheets and got 16 cookies out of it. They made cute little cookie balls.

But my kiddos are particular, and for them, a cookie isn’t a cookie unless it’s fairly flattened. So I flattened them.

Then they went in the oven and came out delicious, moist, edible cookies!

They weren’t a traditional cookie; they almost taste more like a bread bite than a cookie. But unless you think a cookie has to be crisp, you’ll like these very much!

Really, they’re very good! Both my kids can’t eat enough of them!

Sometimes I end up with a little too much banana and not enough oats; to make these extra nutritious I toss in some quinoa flakes until the batter seems “right” to me.

Oh, and make sure to use ripe bananas! I read the comments on the Simple Veganista’s recipe, and it seems the only people who had trouble with the recipe were ones who didn’t use fully ripe (as in probably nearly spoiled) bananas.

Since there’s no added sweetener to this recipe, you want the bananas fully ripe for maximum sweetness.

Some people had luck with not-fully-ripe bananas, but then added some maple syrup or jam to the recipe to add some sweet. But keep it simple and just wait til those bananas are about ready to toss before you make your cookies.

Yesterday morning I made these with a slight alteration that worked beautifully.

Once again, my bananas weren’t completely thawed so I threw them into the VitaMix. On a whim, I decided to add a handful of cauliflower (about 1/3 c.). Since it all pureed together, you couldn’t even tell there was cauliflower in the bananas!

After adding the oats and a little extra quinoa flakes (1/4 c.), I followed the recipe as usual.

I made a double batch, which turned out to be 38 cookies. The kids INHALED them! The entire 38 cookies was gone within 5 hours.

That is a very successful tweak, I’d say!

Whichever way you make them, these are fun and very easy, not to mention delicious and nutritious. I love treat recipes that I can happily give my kids for breakfast!

Oh! Remember when I mentioned that Zac and Jed wouldn’t eat their oatmeal for breakfast one morning?

(Surely I’m not the only mother whose children refuse a bowl of yummy oatmeal, right?)

Well, here’s the solution: bake it!

Instead of scooping all that delicious oatmeal into the trash (or eating three bowls of oatmeal for breakfast – you know you’ve done it!), dollop the leftover oatmeal onto a parchment lined cookie sheet…

And bake it!

They wouldn’t eat the oatmeal, but they ate ALL the oatmeal cookies. Go figure.

Because oatmeal is so moist, these took a long time in the oven. Probably 40-45 minutes by the time it was all said and done.

But the oatmeal got eaten by the kids and not by Darrel, so it’s worth it in my book.

If oats are safe for you, these are both well worth your time! Enjoy!

2 Ingredient Cookies

Prep time

5 mins

Cook time

20 mins

Total time

25 mins

These delicious cookies, inspired by the Simple Veganista, are simple and healthy. Enjoy!

Author: Cradle Rocking Mama (Carrie Summers)

Recipe type: dessert, cookie

Serves: 12-18 cookies

Ingredients

2 ripe bananas
1 c. oatmeal

Instructions

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
Mash the bananas in a bowl.
Add the oatmeal.
Add any optional ingredients (coconut flakes, chocolate chips, cinnamon, raisins, nuts, vanilla, etc.)
Mix together.
Scoop the batter onto the cookie sheet.
Bake for 15-20 minutes.
Enjoy your healthy treat!

Fall(ing Apart)

Practical Preserving: How to Dehydrate Eggs

Happy Preserving!

Practical Preserving: How to Make Cucumber Chips

Happy Preserving!

Vegan Cucumber-Cauliflower Soup

More Tips to Make Life Bearable When Your Whole Family is Sick

MORE TIPS TO MAKE LIFE BEARABLE WHEN YOUR WHOLE FAMILY IS SICK

Norovirus…And a Cold?

So we may have lost one or more of our safe foods thanks to this horrendous virus.

bad words bad words very very bad words

A Horrible Weekend

Practical Preserving: How to Dehydrate Basil

Happy Preserving!

Brown Thumb Gardener: End of Summer Update

I think my brown thumbs are finally starting to turn green.

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