It's been a long while since I've written a blog entry with any substance to it, largely because life has had all the substance I can handle right now. I've been busy planning a trip to Denver, Colorado, where my now-19-month-old daughter and I (along with my mother, thank goodness) will be spending 16 nights in a hotel and as many days at a hospital.

National Jewish Hospital is the holy grail for severe food allergy sufferers. Since my daughter can still only safely consume three foods, we've been accepted as patients in their two week "day clinic". At the same time we'll be part of another program at a neighboring children's hospital, where they will poke and prod my little princess to determine if she has an underlying disease that explains why she seems unable to tolerate most foods.

The coordinating of this trip has been out of my realm of experience, having 1)never been away from home that long, 2)never traveled any significant distance with a toddler, and 3)never been this involved with anything "medical". I had slides to ship, medical records from six doctors to get, copy, and send, and so on. She's had two tests performed in preparation for our trip as well. I'm still not convinced that my insurance is really going to pay everything that the hospital says they are, but we have to go anyway, no matter what it costs.

Meanwhile, I've been in the unenviable position of needing to make my daughter at least a little bit sick before we go so that tests will come out accurate. That means returning to "food trialing," a joyous experience in which I try for a week to get darling daughter to consume some of a new food while I watch her skin, her eyes, her vomiting patterns (yes, she throws up enough to have vomiting patterns, it's pretty icky), and record her sleep disturbances. Her sleep is most often disrupted by these food trials. She can go all day being happy go lucky, but lying flat for hours makes the digestive juices go places they shouldn't.

Then there's always the problem of "Is this a reaction?" One eye gets red while she's eating - an allergy symptom or some random dust speck landing on her eyeball? A mark on her skin - did she rub something funny, or is that going to become a hive? Multiple wake-ups crying at night - allergy or did she cough too much?

On one hand, you don't want to continue to feed her a food she's allergic too, but on the other hand, you don't want to rule out a food that might be OK. After all, when you can only eat three foods you don't want to discard something that might be edible.

The bottom line, though, is that I have to go with what I know, and as her mother and the one who knows her the best, I know a lot. And that's why I have to say that our latest food trial is a failure, even though we've only gone far enough to see minor symptoms. In the past I've listened to others who have convinced me that I'm not really sure that a symptom is really a reaction(they mean well) and I've continued a food trial to the point of getting hives. But this time, I'm going with my gut. Chick peas are out the window. Next item!

In other news, my 4.5-year-old son has been diagnosed with sensory integration disorder, which means that he has trouble processing information coming in through his senses. On one hand, it's not so bad, because it means that many of the things he does that drive us freakin' nuts aren't his fault. On the other hand, it means he needs occupational therapy that my insurance company most likely won't pay for, and as a family, we are going to have to work hard to set him up for success so that he can do well in school and not be left behind because of this disorder.

So, see? Lots of substance. Not a lot of lighthearted writing time. And so it goes.