Welcome to Georgia's Journey

Georgia Lily Lucas was born at home on October 6th, 2008 4:15am, in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She was diagnosed with SMA (Spinal Muscular Atrophy) on April 1, 2009.

On April 3rd Georgia was taken home, to be near her sisters and the rest of her family and friends. Nearly three weeks later, on April 21, 2009, she died peacefully -- in the loving arms of her mother and in the same room in which she was born.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

A Nutty Story!

Wow, has it really been a week since I last posted? Calla and Aria have had bad colds since Friday so it has meant very little sleep around here. They both seem to be on the mend now so hopefully we'll all be in the clear for a while. Just as I'm writing this however, Mike is sniffling and complaining that he isn't feeling very well. Argh!! I hate cold and flu season.

Since there isn't much else to report I thought that I would share a funny story with you. When I was in kindergarten I went for allergy testing. At the time they tested me for all kinds of things and one of them was peanuts. My mom was told that I was very allergic to them and that I should stay away from all nuts. As the years went on my allergy to peanuts seemed to get worse. Even the smell started to bother me and I started to carry around an epipen. I accidentally ate a peanut butter cookie once and the reaction was instantaneous.

Every time that I went out to eat I always had to ask if there was any nuts and sesame seeds for that matter as I now have a severe allergy to those to0. There's no Thai food around here! : (

Fast forward more than 25 years - my mom starts talking about how healthy almonds are. I reply that I know but I'm allergic to nuts. Then my mom says, "Well actually I'm not sure that you are allergic to nuts. They only tested you for peanuts and told us to just stay away from the other nuts. Aren't peanuts a legume anyway?" (Please take a minute now to sit in stunned silence as I did)

WHAT!!!! I was never tested for tree nuts? I have spent pretty much my entire life avoiding all kinds of foods because of nuts. Now, I know that it wasn't my mom's fault. I don't really think that they had differentiated between peanuts and tree nuts at the time so I understand but - WHAT??!!!!

So, anyway I went out and bought some almonds... and I ate the almonds. In fact, I have eaten hundreds of almonds in the last month! : ) I really like almonds! Today, I decided to try walnuts. Guess what? I can eat those too! My plan is to slowly try all of the tree nuts. Anyone who has severe allergies can understand how life changing this is for me.

So that's my story.

Love to you all,

Kristen

4 comments:

  1. Glad you are enjoying your almonds. lol John used to have fast anaphylactic reaction to peanuts and a few other nuts too. Also to raw apples and carrots. Raw only, apparently it was an enzyme destroyed by cooking. NOW he avoids one nut, I think its Filberts and he can eat all of the above but now has a milder anaphylactic response to soy and sprouts of any kind. Dr told him when you stop eating the food for certain periods sometimes you lose the allergy. What the heck eh? But his folks did a similar thing when they knew he was allergic to apples they wouldn't feed him any fruit except bananas so now he doesnt like any fruit except bananas which oh btw he is now also allergic to bananas but not an anaphylactic allergy. LOL So one day you may eat peanuts....who knows. In the meantime glad you can enjoy your almonds. Cashew butter is really good if you can eat them. Kate and John

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  2. Too funny! I can just imagine you sitting on the couch with a HUGE bowl of almonds savoring every bite!! At least you found out now so you can enjoy them for the next 30+ years!! :-) Love Em

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  3. Now I'm trying to get Kristen to try Almond Butter! We found some at Superstore that says "no peanuts - made in a peanut-free facility". There's nothing quite like the joy of peanut/almond butter toast!

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