Life Changes come in Three's

Life-changing things were for 2009 and 2010.

Shortly after the birth of our little bundle of joy (yes, cliche, I know), I started to get hives almost daily, and they were barely controllable even with a daily Reactine, in addition to the occasional Benadryl. It looked like my allergies were back, or even worse, I had NEW allergies.

I had been eating a lot of seafood at that time, so we had suspected a seafood allergy or a shellfish allergy and eliminated that from my diet. It didn't work, as I believe I still ended up going to the hospital at least once....it may have been twice, and the nurses even berated me for not using my epipen.... Yeah....

I eventually got an allergist appointment scheduled and I just had to wait for it to arrive. I also wondered if I would be able to follow the appointment instructions, and refrain from taking any anti-histamines 48 hours before the appointment (so they can accurately test for allergic reactions). Unfortunately, that ended up not happening due to the severe reactions, so I had to take a blood test instead.

I am now allergic to wheat and dairy, in addition to my seasonal allergies. Gee....so my raisin bran cereal with milk, and whole wheat bread that I was eating EVERY day was giving me horrid allergies.

And then I wonder what in the world am I able to eat if I can't have wheat? Wheat is in everything! Bread, cake, pies, pizza, pasta, pastries, cookies, candy, hundreds of sauces (including bbq sauce, soy sauce, oyster sauce, hoisin sauce etc etc.), cereal (except for Rice Krispies, Corn Flakes and Corn Pops yaay!), tortillas, crackers, etc. etc.

Milk is in quite a few of my favourite foods as well. No yogurt or ice cream or cheese, no pastries again and thousands of other baked goods (which contain flour too), no cream soups or cream-based sauces, no buttered popcorn, not even soy cheese, which contains casein (a milk protein).

Whole Foods and Famous Foods became my "frenemy". It was great because they had a lot of alternative foods out there, but enemy because it was really really expensive. A loaf of bread that I could eat was now anywhere from $5 - $7, depending on what I wanted to eat. Crackers were $7-8 a box. Our grocery bill went really REALLY high. And we also had to get rid of the stuff that I couldn't eat. Our families loved us for the free food they got.

So that was life change 2 and 3. Or life change 2, since they can be put together.

So if that was #2, the third one was we became an Auntie and Uncle! :) Little B is so cute! We are so excited our babies will be playmates. We only wished frodowm lived closer though. Ah well, at least we're in driving distance! :D