There's a woman in my choir who is a Physician Assistant. She's the one who graciously agreed to remove Ian's catheter in June. Sue came to the rescue again today by removing the tape and patches from Ian's back. It definitely was a two person job as Ian was screaming and moving as he didn't like all that stuff being peeled off his back. She said there weren't any raised or red spots at this point. I am not sure if this is a good thing or not. Maybe it shows that our previous allergist was right that patch testing is not necessary for EE. I really did like the previous allergist, but this one is a LOT closer to our house. We shall see what they say tomorrow. When the GI told us the results of the upper-GI were negative, I remember saying that's not good news. That wasn't what she was expecting me to say, and I responded that I knew there was a problem, and this meant we needed to do more testing to find out what it was. It was the endoscopy that finally revealed his problem (EE). In this case, I wasn't hoping for more allergies to be discovered. The previous allergist believes that traditional allergy testing isn't useful with EE. He uses the child's responses to the various foods to be the determining factor rather than a blood test, prick test, or patch test. 
Ian has tested negative to milk (by all three types of tests), but by his behavior (in this case vomiting), it seems he's allergic to milk and soy. The prick testing shows him to be allergic to peanuts and eggs. I honestly am tempted to call the previous allergist and get his input after I hear what this one says tomorrow, but I'm not sure if it's fair to keep calling him if I don't want to drive 4 hours (RT) to have him see Ian again. As a parent, this is the first time I've encountered a medical issue where the doctors are not agreeing on how to handle it, and I'm struggling to know which one to believe. Well the next step is to have Ian's back read by the allergist tomorrow and to hear what this one thinks. We're seeing a different one tomorrow (at the same clinic though) so actually it will be a third opinion of sorts.
The psychologist emailed me yesterday morning and asked me to keep a three day log of what Ian ate, what his behavior was, what he drank, etc. He also wants to know the latest report from the Allergist before making a decision whether or not Ian should be admitted to the intensive feeding program. Keith wants to be sure that all physiological issues have been resolved before we tackle the behavioral/psychological ones. I am going to send him that info Monday night so hopefully I'll hear back from him on Tuesday. 
Before I would agree to admitting him, I would want to know what exactly Keith thought their feeding team could accomplish with Ian during that 3-6 week time span. A woman at church who is a special ed preschool teacher told me today that one of her current students (age 4) was referred for the intensive feeding program, and his parents refused to sign him up for it. She said this boy is still having SO much trouble eating, and the teachers are really wishing the parents had (or would) agree to the program. She was obviously advocating for me to enroll Ian in the program. 
A woman who is a retired physical therapist gave me some recommendations of other therapists in the area who specialize in sensory issues. She thought the intensive program would be too much for me to handle with a 3 year old and also going through ivf at the same time (she's one of the few people I've told "in real life" that we're doing ivf again). The bottom line is that we are still praying for wisdom to know what would be best. If it seems like we might be doing the intensive program, I am going to call my department chair as this seems like a valid reason to need to know what's up for next semester. I haven't asked him about it since the middle of November.
Speaking of medical appointments, one thing I failed to mention in my post about the kids' names a few days ago was ease of pronunciation. Thus far no one has really had trouble pronouncing Nadia's name when they've read it before they've heard it. I can't say that about Ian. At several medical facilities people have prounounced Ian's name phonetically as in the long "I" sound rather than "E" sound at the beginning of his name. If it has been someone who isn't going to keep saying his name over and over, I haven't corrected them, but if it's been someone like a nurse in the recovery room who will be saying his name many times over a period of a few hours, then I've corrected their pronunciation. I much prefer the sound of his name with an "e" sound at the beginning!
P.S. These are some more pictures from Wednesday's photo shoot. I didn't buy any prints of any of the poses pictured in this post.
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