How This All Started

In October 2006, a woman, Lee, was assigned to visit me monthly as a church responsibility. I was explaining to her that my oldest son, Jabren, was allergic to milk. She was interested and told me she had seen this doctor who told her she was allergic to all this stuff, like Vitamin C, sugars and a lot of other things, I've never heard of as allergies. She explained that she elliminated her allergy to the Vitamin C and the sugars. At this point, I was only slightly curious. It was pretty far fetched and I had never comprehended such a thing as elliminating allergies.She came every month and every month I'd ask her about this doctor, how this ellimination worked, and where she was at. It just seemed kind of mind boggling. She didn't know very much about it, except that she tested non-allergic to things she had been treated for.In June 2007 I took Jabren to his pediatrician for his yearly check up and she stressed the importance of two things 1.) absolutely no dairy in his diet, whatsoever and 2.) have allergy testing done, to find out what else he needs to abstain from. She figured if he was this severely allergic to dairy he was likely to have other serious allergies.She gave me a phone number of an allergist and I left her office. I'm grateful to her because she was the first to take this matter seriously and she pointed me in a direction of doing something. Jabren had seen many doctors in his 4 years of life and none of them seriously believed his spitting up, eczema or hives were from dairy. These doctors just advised that if I thought it helped, stop giving him milk products.But as I kept coming across this post-it note with a phone number to call, I just couldn't bring myself to have him tested. It just didn't seem right. I just felt a stupor of thought and no motivation to make the appointment. I believe now, that in the back of my mind I realized that if I was going to find out his allergies I wanted to first start with a less invasive route, like what Lee had told me about. But still I hadn't moved forward with our pediatricians advise, no matter which way I was going to go.Here's the clincher for us:Jake, my husband, started telling Jabren "Someday, when you're a big boy you're going to be able to have milk, and cake and ice cream and pizza, someday when you're a big boy." I remember feeling empowered when Jake said this so confidently, but I felt sad and sorry too, because his doctor said he most likely would not outgrow this, because of its severity. But still, I wanted to believe what Jake was saying. Well, Jabren absolutely believed what his dad was telling him. A few weeks later at dinner he started proclaiming "Look Dad, I'm eating my vegetables so I can be a big boy." Then later he started expressing a desire to have something with cheese, which he knew was totally off limits. We questioned him and he sadly said "But Dad, you told me when I was a big boy I could have dairy."He honestly and in faith believed his dad. If he was a big boy (which to him meant eating his vegetables) he would be able to have milk again. Jake and I looked at each other when we realized what was going on and my heart sank and hurt for Jabren. That is the moment I decided to call Lee's doctor and make an appointment. If there was any possible way for things to change for Jabren I had to at least explore the option.