Friday, January 04, 2008

choice and reckoning

Our home-grown test has failed: the Toddles is stuffy nosed, unable to sleep, itchy and dark circles, known as allergy shiners, curve under his poor eyes.

He is still allergic to soy, and I'm furious with myself for testing the matter, for listening to a careless doctor. I want to roar. I want to find that doctor and yell at him for being dismissive - and I want to be able to shift the blame for this choice off my shoulders and on to his.

Gently, politely confused, one of the Eldest's medical team asked me, why was chickpea tested in the hospital, while soy is being tested at home? I had no good answer. But the truth is that I was frustrated, the child had had hives from some turkey salami, and I wanted to believe that maybe, maybe I was being overcautious. Maybe I had overly restricted our world, our diet. The Man, balking at the idea of pulling the cold cuts from our diet (however temporarily), threw his hands up in confusion. Why don't you want to give him the meats? Maybe it was just the one bad batch? Surprised, he watched me practice my customary caution in one, and throw away caution for hope with another area.

I have learned a hard lesson, and I rarely dislike being right quite so much as I do tonight.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dang. I wish you'd gotten soy back.

I was a bit surprised that you were testing Toddles' allergies already; I had the impression you waited longer with Eldest's (to let the system settle down?).

I hope Toddles recovers quickly. And that cold cuts stay fine. And you get a pony.

Well, maybe not that last :-)

Leora said...

I am hardly an expert on these matters, but then neither are medical doctors experts in nutrition. I have been told by "complementary" medical doctors to stay far away from soy products. Soy, unless it is in a certain fermented form, cannot be digested properly by humans.

I hope the Toddles feels better soon.