It's Lenny's Fault, He Broke the Plate, He's Very Naughty...

When I was little, my mom would always tell me how much like my brother, Brent, I was. She said it was like raising him all over again. Now that we're older, I've noticed quite a few differences. 1) He's male, I'm female; 2) He lives in Colorado with Sunny, I live in sunny Arizona with Braden; 3) He has the appropriately-dubbed Brent Humor, I can't even compete; 4) He employs me, I work for him; 5) He had 2 sons first, I had 2 daughters. The list probably goes on and on. But I've also been amazed to see little things that we still have in common. Like Taryn's egg allergy. Brent was the only one in my family with food allergies and it happened to be to eggs. Here my daughter is allergic to eggs too. I'll blame that on Brent.

We had Taryn's allergist appointment on Wednesday and they poked her back with 40 different serums, 37 of which were testing common allergens, from molds, weeds, grasses, and trees to animal and foods. It was interesting to watch it be done and Taryn didn't seem to mind at all. In the end, she is allergic to quite a few things: cats, dogs, horses, german cockroaches (darn), penicillium mold, bermuda and johnson grass, eggs, and (drum roll please)...peanuts. Double darn. I was really praying and praying that she wouldn't be allergic to that or wheat. But here we are and she is. In fact, they grade it on a scale, kind of from -1 to 3+ (I don't know how high it goes). '-1' basically meant there was no allergic reaction at all. She was -1 for milk, thank goodness. '0' meant that her skin was red but wasn't necessarily an indication of an allergy. She came up as a 1 for the histamine which was the control and the guide for her reactions. For eggs, she was a 2, and for peanuts she was a 3. Triple darn.

So, we now have an epipen and a lot to learn. Thank goodness Brent and Sunny are around to help us. Oh yeah, and Brent's daughter is the only other grandchild with food allergies and she is allergic to...peanuts. Quadruple darn. But I can't blame that on Brent or on Sierra, just on good ol' genes. Darn.