A Little Trouble In The Night

With Rush Day going so well, we decided to go out to eat at Olive Garden to celebrate and then came back to the hotel to rest. Around six P.M., we decided that he was doing well enough for a lazy dip in the pool.

All went well and we came back to the room and settled in for the night. Nathan slept sound until 1:00 A.M. When he woke us to let us know that his stomach hurt. I fed him a few crackers and he fell back to sleep for half an hour when he started vomiting.

He threw up again at 2:00 A.M at which point Kerri took over and found Cool Runnings on TV. After a long bout of abdominal pain, Nathan fell asleep around Four A.M. and slept soundly until Seven when I woke him for a required dose of antihistamine.

After breakfast at nine, he took his morning dose and seemed to do well, so well that around noon, we decided to try Cracker Barrel. Lunch went well, but afterwards, he began wheezing so we gave him Benadryl and when that didn't seem to work quickly enough, he took two puffs of the rescue inhaler and we took the rest of the day off in the hotel.

The doctors office had warned us that Nathan should limit his activity after the treatment, but we have been amazed at how little activity seems to set him off.

Not being convinced that things were going quite as they should, we call Dr. Foster and he decided that we should reduce the dose from .5cc to .25cc of diluted peanut solution. It is kind of scary to think that the reaction that Nathan is having is due to .05cc of peanut powder. That is less than .01 of a teaspoon.

So, this may not be the walk in the park that we imagined. Nathan is probably going to have to reduce his activities this semester as will the family. Nathan's reaction to the treatment is similar to a lot of the kids who have ended up dropping out of the program. So far, our son does not seem deterred by the difficulties and seems to understand that the short term pain will result in a safer and less constrained long term life.

We encourage you all to pray with us for Nathan, his resolve and God's hand in all of this to change the way his immune system handles the peanut protein.