June 22 & 23: Two Days, Two Allergist Visits, A Lot of SpongeBob
I spend a LOT of my “free time” at the doctor. Wonder why I never go that freelance career off the ground? Two words: doctors’ appointments.
There is the matter of Z’s underweightness, a chronic condition that has no discernible diagnosis (genetics?) but that still nags. Then there were his purported enlarged adenoids. Throw in a few annual check ups and sicknesses, and of course, the allergies, and you’ll start to understand.
On Monday I take Z up to Mt. Sinai Hospital, aka the endpoint of the Earth, to find out if he has a peanut allergy. Z tested positive on a skin test and negative on a blood test for the allergy, so the only way to reconcile the two is to spend four hours in a medically-supervised environment force-feeding him two tablespoons of Skippy, an epinephrine shot nearby. The new medical science says I should have done this 2.5 years ago, but I’m late to the party. Since C is allergic to peanuts, I’m convinced that a.) Z is allergic too and b.) it doesn’t matter because I’m an old pro. Turns out Z hates peanut butter, and takes exactly 4 lollipops and 20 minutes of TV to bribe him to eat it, but he’s not allergic. I keep looking for the hives and the telltale itching, but there’s none. Case closed. The doctor sends us home after two hours of observation and a lot of cartoons.
The day is glorious, my mood is upbeat, and Z and I depart to nearby Central Park. We both eat hot dogs, I step in dog poop and we watch a middle-aged woman carrying an industrial-sized garbage bag full of something in her hands balance another industrial-sized garbage bag full of maybe the same thing on her head. I love Central Park. I am so glued to my small patch of Brooklyn, but when I leave I am reminded of why I used to live for travel, back when I could; here we are, just one borough away, and there’s a whole different beauty, the sun shines at a different angle on the grass; we can observe an entirely novel set of rich people. Z cons me into buying him a popsicle from a vending stand and a SpongeBob SquarePants one at that. Z cannot yet wrap his brain around the science of melting ice and so within three minutes he’s wearing SpongeBob SquarePants popsicle juice, necessitating so much washing-down that I have to rely on the kindness of strangers for more napkins (the vendor guy has cut me off, after maybe 20). Even after all those crumbled wet napkins, Z’s hands are covered in a neon orange tint, like he’s some child laborer working a toxic mine by day.
On Tuesday we are back to, you guessed it, Mt Sinai Hospital. C participates in a clinical trial there, aimed at curing or at least lessening his peanut allergies. The idea is to desensitize him to peanuts by escalating a dosage of peanut flour every two weeks. (I wrote about this trial last year). To me, it’s two hours of round-trip driving and a parking headache and a nod to my belief in the powers of experimental medicine; to the boys, it’s a chance to get spoiled by the nurses, eat chocolate pudding and watch SpongeBob SquarePants. Today is no different: a quick physical from the nurse, some marveling over C’s impressive growth (he and Z are opposites in so many ways), and then both boys eat chocolate pudding – C’s is spiked with peanut flour – and they settle into the television and argue over possession of the remote. This marks our second-to-last visit before the final dose in the trial. We’ve been at this for well over a year now, and the every-other-week visits are part of the boys’ and my regular routine: all the schlepping, the misbehaving in the hospital room, the tired trips. But there’s been remarkably little whining in this affair – most of it comes from me.
We know that at least by clinical measures, the trial has worked: C’s tolerance for peanut flour is more than 20 times what it was when we first started. Whether it will make any difference in the real world – I have no idea. I like to brag about the trial because it just sounds so damn cool, but I do spend a lot of time wondering whether it’s been a gigantic waste of time. Was this the smartest decision I ever made for my kid? Or just another dumb parenting move, aimed at betterment, yielding nothing.