Chocolate only, Doctor's orders!

This is not a very good picture, but this is a picture of Amelia's face last Halloween when she was given Skittles by her brother.  We had noticed her breaking out when she ate candy.  Sometimes, worse than others.  This particular day was the breaking point for me.  She was broke out all over her face and if you can tell, her cheek even swelled.  I had mentioned this time and time again to her pediatrician, but he wasn't concerned and said she would grow out of it.  She had even begun to dig at her tongue and I was scared for her whether or not her doctor was.  I finally insisted on him referring her to an allergist.  Against his judgement, he huffed and finally agreed to refer her to one.

At the allergist, they numbered her back and began doing the prick test.  She was not happy, but done so good.  I had my pastor's wife with me and she was a Godsend.  As soon as the dr came in Amelia began backing up between the seats so he couldn't get to her.  We made lots of promises to try to get her to cooperate.  We pretended the nurse was painting Sleeping Beauty on her back and the pricks was the paint.  So when they started the pricking and it was itching, we had to hold her hands because she didn't want to smear the paint.  Ha Ha  A white lie, perhaps, but hey, it worked!  I also had packed Josiah's DS in my purse and she was happy playing with that for the 15 mins we had to wait for the results.

When the dr came back in the first thing he said was that there is no testing for dye allergies, which obviously she was allergic too.  I was kinda aggravated because I was hoping to find out which dye it was that she was allergic too.  He said no dyes at all for a whole year.  Which means, no candy for a year.  A whole lot of other stuff too being that dyes are in everything.  I have cut way down on the dye intake she is eating.  I can't control it all, but we have it narrowed down to zero candy.  Besides what she sneaks, of course.  He said to only allow her to eat Chocolate.  So now she is a choco-holic!  We also found out that she is allergic to apples, banannas, tree nuts, beef, green beans, peaches, and tomatoes.  Tomatoes was a pretty bad allergy so she had to completely cut it out of her diet for a month until her new medicine took effect.  A whole month without ketchup, pizza, and spaghetti was not easy.  Probably harder than her giving up candy for a year.  We went back for more testing and that's when we found out she was allergic to green beans.  This was the straw that broke the camel's back.  She cried all the way back home because she said she loved green beans.  It was funny because she never cried when they said she couldn't have anymore candy, but when they said no green beans for a month, she cried big ole tears.  I think she was just tired of the whole thing and didn't want anyone to say she couldn't have anymore types of food.  I mean green beans?  Seriously?

She has become quite sneaky lately and has been sneaking candy when I'm not looking.  At first she would ask, "My dr say I can have this?"

A lady at church made a jelly bean cake for Easter and I was told that everytime Amelia walked by that cake she would pop a jelly bean in her mouth.  Crazy kid!

I also think that it is so sweet that the people at our church went out and bought tootsie rolls to keep on them for her on church nights.  They have always given her candy and when they found out she wasn't allowed to have any at all they bought her what she could have.  Isn't that sweet?

I'm hoping her dr is right and she eventually grows out of these food allergies, but until then, Chocolate it is!!!!