Pork Trial Update

Last week I missed sharing a lot of things, so here’s a little update on how the kiddos are doing.

When I left off, we discovered I had inadvertently corned Zac with dishwashing soap. That put the pork trial back in full swing, albeit with some residual reaction symptoms.

We kept going with pork, and he kept going with eating – and loving – it!

Tuesday and Wednesday we had some unseasonably warm weather, and I decided the boys needed to get out and stretch their legs a bit. We went to the park on both days.

This was the first time Zac really ever got to go to a park to play. (Sad, right? At nearly 21 months old, he’s never gotten to play at a park. Thank you, FPIES!) The first – and last – time I attempted to let him play at a park, he promptly bent down and started picking up things off the ground to eat. Since he had already reacted to tree buds, that was a major problem for us, so we left and never went back.

This year, though, he’s a little older. I thought he might finally be past the point where he would eat everything he could get his little hands on…and I was right!

He wanted to play. He did pick things up off the ground, but he investigated them with his hands – and even brought them to me (either to give them to me as a gift, or in a questioning way, like “What’s this?”)!

It was wonderful to see him able to participate in life like a normal little boy.

Jed, of course, LOVES the park. He runs up to groups of kids (or adults!) and calls out “My people! You must play with me!” which is so bossy sounding, but so funny that everyone laughs and plays with him. Only a 3 year old with a huge grin could get away with saying things like that – and having that tactic actually work!

Both kids scampered, climbed, crawled, CLIMBED, slid, swung, bounced, rocked and had. a. blast.

I made them wash their hands really well as soon as we left the park and get out of their clothes, just in case.

Of course, with FPIES, any good thing is usually followed by at least some confusion, and park-playing is no different. Thursday Zac stopped eating as much of both pork and quinoa. Friday I noticed he tugged his ear a few times. So, out came the otoscope!

Again, I’m no expert on inner ears, but his ears certainly looked like they had some fluid on them. They didn’t look full-blown infected, though, so we decided to be watchful and preventative.

I tried to use warm rags against his ears whenever he would let me this weekend, and Friday and Saturday I was able to drop a little garlic infused oil into his ears. I’d hoped that would be enough.

Thursday morning we also ran out of pork. Our newest shipment came that night, but it arrived too late for me to be able to cook any of it for dinner. Since we’ve had such a confusing trial so far, Darrel and I decided to go ahead and leave pork shelved for another 3 day break, reintroduce it Sunday night, and call it (one way or another) by Friday of this week.

Sunday night I got out a pork chop, cut off the bone and fat, stuck it in a Ziploc bag, beat it with a hammer, threw some quinoa “bread” in a food processor to make pseudo-breadcrumbs, cut the pork into small pieces and breaded them. Then I baked them in the oven for about 25 minutes, flipping them halfway.

Zac couldn’t get enough! He LOVED them! In the end, he ate almost an entire pork chop by himself at dinner. There were only a handful of pieces leftover for today’s snack.

Guess that’s a winner of a recipe!

I also cooked up another pork roast in the oven to have on hand, and I can’t wait to get out the pork belly we ordered. Since he lacks any safe salt or sweeteners, I can’t actually turn the belly into ‘real’ bacon, but Christina assures me that sliced pork belly cooked will crisp up and still taste a lot like real bacon.

I’m planning to hold off as long as I can on this one. If we call pork safe on Friday, then *I* can eat pork, too…and Mama sure would like some pseudo-bacon! (Don’t worry, I’ll let Zac eat most of it. I just want a little taste!)

Unfortunately, last night Zac’s ears looked a little worse than before. One definitely looks as though there might be an infection blossoming in there. So today I will call to see if our beloved nurse practitioner will take a peek and confirm or deny.

If it is an ear infection, now I clearly know what to look for, which is good. And we will have caught it REALLY early, which is also good.

Early enough, I hope, that I can amp up the garlic oil treatments and hopefully get rid of it that way instead of necessitating yet another round of Rocephin shots.

Darrel and I are anxious to move forward with food trials; the sunflower seeds I found and ordered have arrived, and we can possibly get in a sunbutter trial if we start on Friday before the chicken egg trial begins in the middle of March.

We would prefer not to have the timeline derailed by another antibiotic treatment. Although, we will if we have to.

Honestly, we’re simply being overly cautious with the pork because we want to know absolutely  that it is a safe food before moving on. I am 95% sure that pork is safe for Zac, and I couldn’t be happier about it!

Both my boys have been doing well on weight (Jed’s holding tight at 30 pounds and Zac is steady at 23), and Zac’s hair is finally getting thicker. His behavior is actually getting worse, but as my mom pointed out, this is typical toddler “learning preferences and finally expressing his wants” stuff…not reaction symptoms. That means he’s feeling well enough to act normally; to be developmentally appropriate.

THAT is fantastic news!

Jed is doing well, too. We’re back on track with potty training, and he’s blossoming even more with his development. He’s telling mores stories, playing more imaginatively, using words that surprise me (he can say “pteranodon” – thanks, Dinosaur Train!), and is much easier to deal with in public.

This week we’ll probably give him a try with sweet peas; a food he LOVED before FructMal took it out of his diet. Hopefully he can tolerate at least a small serving of it on occasion without having a reaction.

So, that was our week. What have you been up to?