First of all, the immunologist was a moron. And a very cocky moron at that. Dr. Firszt was his name and I would NEVER go see that man again. We waited for 30 minutes past our appointment time plus, we were there early! The nurse took us back and started asking questions I had just answered on the paperwork that I filled out in the waiting room and handed to HER! Duh. After the nurse left an intern for internal medicine came in She too proceeded to ask me questions that had answers written down on the paper work AND typed into her file which was PULLED UP ON THE COMPUTER IN FRONT OF HER. Duh again! At least she was nice. She checked B's ears, nose and throat. No comment on any of that. Listened to her lungs and said they sounded good. Looked at her eczema and no comment on that. She told me she would talk to the dr. and be right back.
Dr. Firszt walks into the room and the first thing he says to me is "Who referred you?" Not a hi, how you doing, nothing. When I told him it was James Blotter that had referred us his comment was, "Well I don't know him." I just sat there thinking, "Um, so?" Dr. Firszt spent 10 minutes tops with us. He asked if B had been allergy tested and I said yes, her prick test was last week and her blood test was several months ago. He started asking what she had reacted to so I started ticking all the things off. He asked how allergic of a response she had had to milk so I told him a 4 mm reaction. I kept ticking off items and came to dog. He asked how big of a reaction that was so I said 4 mm again. I told Dr. Firszt that Dr. Blotter's office had asked us to take B off of all dairy at her appt 3 weeks ago and since I had done that the rattle in her chest had all but disappeared. This man then tells me, "Well, I can't make you do anything but if you're going to take her off of all dairy then you should eliminate the dog too since they had the same reaction." He proceeds to tell me that people who are allergic to dogs are allergic to their saliva not there dander but if I don't eliminate the dog then I need to bathe it at least 2 times a week and definitely don't let it in her room. Um, did you just listen to yourself? She isn't allergic to the dander but I have to bathe her 2 a week? WHY? He also proceeded to tell me that he never tests for food allergies unless the patient has a direct correlation between the food and a reaction because you often times get a lot of false positives so then people end up with a list of 15 foods they think they are allergic to but really aren't. I told him that her brother has the same issue with diary. Apparently, I'm still the moron who doesn't know what she's talking about. Dr. Firszt tells me that he can do a test but, "Are all her immunizations up to date." Um, yes. He has to draw blood and then he puts an immunization into the blood sample and if the blood reacts appropriately to the immunization as it should for someone who has been immunized then it's just allergies. If it doesn't give the appropriate response then she will have to have a booster to that immunization and then come back in four weeks and do it all again. Seriously? Yea, cuz I totally want to deal with this guy twice. So, off we go to the lab. The nurses there were great. There were two of them and they helped hold B and they got her on the first stick. I felt bad because they took like 7 vials of blood. Supposedly we will have results in no more than seven days.
After that fun experience we went and had lunch with Grandma Terri at Sizzler. Once we finished there we headed to our next adventure over at Primary Children's Hospital. Mind you, the nurse that made my appointment at PCH never told me who to see or where to go, just that we had a 1:00 pm appointment for the sweat test for cystic fibrosis.
We made it to Primary Children's just in the nick of time. We went on a small wild goose chase until we found out where we were suppose to be. The lab sent us back to registration so we could get registered. Then registration sent us back to the lab. That lab took us up to the second floor to the outpatient lab. The guy and girl that took care of us at that lab were fantastic! They explained everything they were doing to B as they were doing it. Mind you, B has had her 50 prick allergy test last Wednesday and just had seven vials of blood drawn so she's pretty skeptical about specific blue chairs with large arm rests. Poor B figured she knew what she was in for when she saw the chair and tried to make a break for it. I assured her there would be no owies. Didn't matter. Poor sister screamed her little guts out for a solid 5-10 minutes. They cleaned her arms off (yes ARMS). They put some sort of chemical on a piece of gauze and then placed it on her arms about an inch or so above both wrists. After the gauze was down they placed a copper cuff on her arm and secured it onto her like a bracelet. At this point they hooked her up to a battery - no, I'm not even joking. They turned the battery on and proceeded to shock her on both wrists for a good FIVE minutes. The girl said it feels like your arm is going to sleep but just in that one place. I find it a little difficult to believe that's all it feels like. After that five minute torture was over they unplugged her and took everything off. Then, they wiped her arm down and dried it off. At this point they place a clean dry piece of gauze on the now red square patch she has on her arm. They wrap plastic around said gauze a good two to three times. The plastic is secured in place by some awesome pink and purple corban. A heating pack is then secured to the corban on both arms. At this point, she was given, "a princess blanket" aka a heat blanket and a timer is set for 30 minutes. We got to go to the Forever Young room so she could play while we waited it out. Poor kid could barely bend her arms so she didn't get to play much. Plus, she was pretty skeptical about what we were doing in a new location.
We were told that our timer was set for 25 minutes instead of the full 30 because once the 30 minutes was up they had exactly 60 seconds to collect the sweat for the test. So, we headed back five minutes before our timer went off, just to be sure because heaven knows we did not want to do this a second time. We made it back to the outpatient lab in plenty of time. Sister knew they were removing everything that was making her hot so she didn't freak out when we walked back in. Actually, to my surprise, she climbed up on my lap in the chair and tuned into Monsters University that they had playing on the tv. Once that 30 minute timer went off all of her stuff came off in about 10 seconds and the sweaty gauze was collected and placed into little vials. I was then told, "Hold on while we weigh it to be sure we have enough." Yea, didn't see that coming! They had to get .7 grams (I'm guessing grams) and they got .82 so we barely had enough sweaty gauze and didn't have to do it all over again. Whew. They didn't tell us if they'd call with the results or mail them or anything so who the heck knows when we'll hear/see these results.
My poor girl was so good today even after being poked and prodded so much. She was even attached to my side. I figured she wouldn't want anything to do with me since I was the mean one holding her down but she did NOT want anything to do with Grandma today. I'm sure glad Grandma went with though because it would have made for a super long day without the extra help!
Here's to hoping we don't ever have to go back to PCH or that immunologists office EVER again!
