Real Busy Weekend!

What a weekend, Friday night was the block party, what a blast- we played outside until almost 10 pm trying to catch fireflies and playing in Nicole's garage. We did not want to goto bed, but mom & dad were pooped. Sat. morning we got up early and went to Pickle Days in Walker (about 7 miles from Center Point) and mom was going to play in a horseshoe tournament. We got there and found out it was a doubles tournament so Dad became her partner. There were 20 teams and mom & dad got 4th! Dad even got 2 ringers (not bad for his first time). Sat night we went back to Pickle days and they had an AWESOME fireworks display. It lasted forever and was very loud! There was big fire balls that went up in the air and huge, high fireworks! We had cotton candy and watched them from a park near where they were being shot off. Sunday brought another busy day, my cousins Joshua & Sophie were in town from MN so we went to grandpa's house to swim. Even though I had sun screen on, I got burnt. Mom says it is from my medicines. So my back has a big white X on it from the straps and my face is really red. I am done with outside for a few days while I recover, but I had a blast in grandpa's pool... Shout outs to my dad's friend Bryan who turned 40 this weekend :)
Have a great day
-Lynda Dee

Outside Time

It is so nice to be able to be outside with the kids. Seeing them run, jump, swing, and play in the water is a wonderful blessing. Lynda's face has decided to flare up, so we are implementing the skills that we learned at National Jewish. Wet wrapping her face three time a day, hoping that within a few days she will be back to normal. I know you are going to ask yourself, what happened to cause a flare on her face. That is the most frustrating thing about eczema it will flare up without us ever knowing what the cause is from. Sometimes you can figure it out, but there are other times were you just never know the answer.

Asthma

Now that we have more food in Lynda's diet and we have her skin under control, her asthma has decided to make an appearance. We learned at National Jewish that an asthma attack can be triggered by rainy weather and humidity. Well it certainly has been rainy and humid here this last week.

Today is Callie's 3rd birthday! She is so excited to be 3.

Tuesday

Lynda was happy to be home with her sister and back at daycare with all of her friends. Last night Lynda said to me "Mommy I wish they would have tested me for pop. " "I would really like to try it." I giggled with her and said "maybe someday you can try pop."

Reunion

Hi All,

Well we pulled into Center Point this morning about 9:30 am. Sorry we have not posted in a while, we had to go to a funeral and there was no internet access there. We got all cleared to leave NJ and I can add soy and pork to my diet. I am really loving the lunch meat honey ham. Between that an potato chips I could live on those two alone. Mommy & Daddy keep telling me I need to eat other things though. I can also have grapes and raisins too. We went to the Ranch to say good bye to great grandpa on Friday and then the funeral on Sat. It was really cool, we got to follow a horse drawn carriage to the cemetery. We were glad to see family & friends it had been way to long since we had seen. Thank you again to everyone to helped me get to National Jewish, it is really changing my life! My sister Callie was so glad to see me! :)

Keep watching we will keep you updated on how things go here!

Love Lynda Dee

Wednesday

Today we had food challenges with pork, shrimp and we re-challenged soy. Lynda did not have any reactions to these foods. Tomorrow we will have our discharge meeting. During this meeting we will go over Lynda's personal action plan regarding the new foods, the allergic foods and her skin treatment plan. Sean and I are so thankful to have been able to bring Lynda here. They have been able to do so much for her in such a short amount of time.

Tuesday

Today was another good day. We got two tests completed and we are a go for green beans and we are waiting on a final ok tomorrow for Soy! Lynda spent the day doing crafts and hanging out and driving the nurses crazy. I think she is getting a bit stir crazy. Lynda was making mommy & daddy laugh this morning, she split the green beans in half and ate the seeds first. Kind of inside out. Daddy got some very sad news today, his grandfather Milo Rypkema took his place in heaven. I guess they needed another tough cowboy up there to ride the big range.

Love & Kisses

Lynda Dee

Monday... A new week

We were very fortunate today. My reaction to Bananas yesterday did not cause any delays. So this morning we went back and I started more food challenges. Today I was cleared for Rice! So right now and I eating rice cakes daddy got me from Wild Oats. I had turkey and had a mild reaction so we are going to hold off on that for a while. I am officially cleared for:

• Lettuce
• Corn
• Potato
• Rice
• Oats
• Raisins/Grapes

Tomorrow I am being tested for green beans and pork and if that goes well and they may throw in one more. I am loving my new foods and enjoying my crafts. I am also posting a picture from yesterday.


Loves and Kisses

Lynda Dee

Denver Zoo and Allergic Reaction

We spent three hours walking around at the Denver Zoo today. We had a great time. We took a lot of pictures. Lynda rode on the merry-go-round and the train at the zoo. Lynda's favorite animal at the zoo was the snow leopard. After the zoo we went back to the hotel to rest and Lynda needed a snack. Lynda peeled a banana for her and one for me and within 15 minutes her lips swelled and her face was red with hives. Off to NJ we went. We sent two hours there monitoring her reaction. They gave her some Benadryl so we will find out tomorrow how this will affect the rest of the allergy tests for this coming week.

Saturday Food Challenges

Well we got in some extra food challenges today, we are cleared to eat Banana, Lettuce, Spinach, and Raisins. We are very excited to try new foods. I really liked the lettuce. We are now off until Monday. We got out about 4 pm and are trying to see what we are going to do with the rest of the evening. I have a bit of cabin fever and I want to go to a park or a movie. I hear Ratatouille is good from Blaine who is also at the hospital. If we go to the movie, we can take my special popcorn with us. Tomorrow we get to go to the zoo! I know have to also do a sinus rinse twice a day. I really do not like this at all. All I will say is that it is gross and nasty. The doctor says that this will help remove MRSA from my sinsus. I would really like that.

Love & Kisses

Lynda Dee

TGIF 2 new foods today- PARTY

I had my second round of skin test today. We tested for environmental allergens from Iowa. Most of the outside stuff came back negative, but my Milk, Egg, dust mites, dog (really allergic) came back bad. So no new pouch for me. We continued food challenges today and we had corn chips and potato chips! Mom and dad had no idea they were sending me here to eat junk food, but I really like it. We have extra duty tomorrow with more food challenges. We are doing a vegetable medley and a fruit cocktail to eliminate several veggies and fruits of the same families. We downgraded my steroids and also I am down to 2 baths a day and only special lotion on my arms and legs.

We also went to a store called Whole Foods, it is much like Wild Oats and we got some corn chips and dried fruit for me. Hope you enjoy the pictures, one of my skin test and 2 of me eating junk food (yeah:) )

All my love,

Lynda Dee

Allergy Testing

Today at 9:30 Lynda had skin allergy testing done. This is where the placed 17 dots on her back with a marker then next to each dot they scratched her skin with a little plastic stick that had a curved needle on it. This little stick was sitting in a little well that had the liquid form of chicken, beef, pork, turkey, etc. Then we sit and wait for 20 minutes to see if her skin would develop a welt.

A welt formed on beef, pork, wheat, peanut, turkey, tuna

A welt did not form on corn, soy, oats, white potato, shellfish, string beans, chicken

After that test was done, we had two food challenges the first one was for corn. Lynda looked, smelled and picked at the corn for quite some time. She did eat some. Tomorrow they are going to have corn baked or cooked into something so she will get more of it.

The second food was oats. Lynda looked and smelled and picked at the oatmeal too. She put some in her mouth and spit it back out. "This is yucky." We sprinkled sugar on it, no go. We even put apple juice on it, no go. I asked for uncooked oats to be brought in to see if she would eat them that way and sure enough she ate some. She then spilled some on the bed and pretended to be a dog at ate it that way. Sean and I were laughing at how silly she was being.

Tomorrow we have more skin testing at 9:30 and food challenges. We know that white potato will be one of them. They are going to bring up a mashed potato and a baked potato so we have options for her taste buds.

We are down to two baths a day with wet wraps for two hours after the bath.

We found a stored called Wild Oats, it is like New Pioneer CO-OP that is down in Coralville. We found blueberry juice, carrot juice, and blueberry jelly all that are safe for Lynda. Lynda just opened her carrot juice and she said now I can have my "mocha". Her grandma always drinks mocha coffee.

Well it is getting late and we still have a bath and wet wraps to get done.

God bless

America's Birthday

It's July 4th and we have a pretty light day. We had to come in and do a bath to show mom & dad could do the other two later. So after breakfast we were able to leave. Down the road from the hotel is cherry creek mall (very swanky). We saw Saks 5th avenue, nieman Marcus all the expensive stores. I liked the play ground area, it was all food, bacon, waffles, oatmeal that you could climb on. We played there for a while then walked around the mall. Daddy went to the Apple store and played with something called an iPhone. He called grandma with it, it was very weird. Through the hospital we also got to go to the aquarium. That was very cool, we saw a real life Nemo & Dorrie. They had sharks, stingrays, tuna, jelly fish and fish and fish and TIGERS! Information overload. I was really tired after that. The fireworks that night got rained how due to an unexpected storm. My skin is doing awesome! We saw some army man jets fly over our hotel last night, it was really cool. We also found our Sam's club and bought me some more chicken .

Tomorrow is allergy testing and back to the regular grind.

Love & Kisses

Lynda Dee

Day Two

There is a room that all people enter where they must wash hands and place gloves, gowns, and masks on before entering Lynda's room. Lynda is in isolation status due to her past MRSA infections. They took about 6 different skin and nose cultures yesterday to test for MRSA. If they come back negative them she will be removed from isolation status, if just one comes back positive then she will remain in isolation. When ever Sean and I leave the room we must wash hands, place gloves, gowns, and masks on before leaving. Today they drew 6 tubes of blood for many different tests. We will find out those results later in the week. The blood draw went surprisingly well. They first put a numbing cream on both arms, then placed a clear bandaid them. 45 minutes later on the first stick blood was coming out of her arm. If we ever have to be in the hospital again, Jayne we need to get this stuff. The baths three times a day are getting better. When we say that they are getting better we mean that we are no longer trying to hold her down in the water. She is no longer screaming and crying. I think we all have some hearing loss. She has to stay in the water for 20 minutes. They have a timer in the bathroom, so we are in the water for the correct amount of time. We are still wearing wet pj's but the wrapping of ace bandages have stopped. Sean and I attending family group therapy today. There is a lady from South America with her daughter. I also attended a class on Atopic Dermatitis, while Sean was assisting the nurse with giving Lynda her second bath today. Tonight we get to spend the night in the hotel. Since tomorrow is a holiday we will have a light schedule, just bathing and wrapping. If her skin is doing well on Thursday she will have skin allergy testing done. Well that is about all for now. Take care and God bless.

First Day- National Jewish

We started our day very early. We were not sure what to expect for rush hour in downtown Denver. We are only about 10 blocks from the hospital, but it takes like 15 minutes to get there. Once checking in with security we can head up. Our initial surprise in the am was mommy found a visitor in our bath tub. A brown recluse spider (poisonous much like a black widow spider) waiting for his turn to shower. We took care of it, then we could all prepare for our day. We were running a bit late. Today was a busy day. Daddy said it was like press day for the Hawkeyes. All these people came in to introduce themselves and we talked about me! Tonight we have to stay overnight so they can see how I sleep. I am doing baths 3 times a day and putting my lotions on with some new ones too. Tomorrow morning I have to have some blood tests done, and I am really not looking forward to that. We are watching Dora and Disney channel waiting for the next group of people to come through. So far I am not doing too much other than playing while mommy and daddy talk with the doctors.

Keep watching for updates

Love Lynda Dee

Bonus !

Well Mommy picked a great hotel. About 9:15 the fireworks display started and lasted an hour. We were all memorized for the entire time. Daddy met some people in the parking lot and they were from Des Moines. One of them works for one of daddy's customers. We are not really sure how to describe what we saw. Mommy said it was the mostest awesome fireworks show she had ever seen. I think we need to come back and show Callie too. The sprinkler system for the hotel went off about half way through the show so we had to move. It did not spoil my fun, I have never seen so many colors in the sky at once. Daddy says the pictures of the fireworks are not representative of what we saw, come to Glendale and see them next year. It's late, I need to crash.

Love you all.

Lynda Dee

In the Mile High City

We made it!!! Yesterday we left in the early afternoon and drove across Iowa and into Neb. We stopped for the night in Grand Island. We got very lucky, there was a HUGE baseball tournament and we got the last room at the Roadway Inn. It was cool we had a lake front view and we got up around 9 am to continue our journey. Lynda drank a bit too much water and apple juice because it seemed like we stopped at every exit to go to the bathroom. The mountains near Denver are cool. Daddy told me they are called the Rocky Mountains. There is little bits of snow on the very tops. We got here around 5:30 Iowa time and we unloaded all our stuff for the 2 week visit. The Ronald McDonald house is not looking very promising, but the hotel we are in is very nice and clean. There is a fireworks display tonight for Glendale, CO and it almost right outside our room. We drove down to the hospital so that we know how to get there tomorrow. Then we went to SuperTarget (it's right next door) to get my supplies. We are back in the room now and getting ready for bed.

Love and kisses to everyone. We will talk again soon. Watch the blog to see how my first day went.