Alison is scheduled for her Botox injection. After playing a bit of phone tag with Dr. Hurvitz to see if we really needed to have the office appointment with him in February, which would have been to talk about doing the injection and we had already did that in October, we agreed to cancel that appointment and just go ahead and schedule the injection. I got to play a bit more phone tag with the folks at Mott, and today we got her scheduled. The earliest they could get her in is March 3, at 1:00 in the afternoon, so March 3, at 1:00 in the afternoon it will be.

We were back to see Dr. Craig again today. Luckily, we didn't have a two hour wait like we did last time. Alison's ankle is still swelling, especially if she's been really active. We showed him the sleeve that we had found and he thought it was funny that the sporting good store sent us to a drug store and that's where we found it. Dr. Craig felt around, moved Alison's foot around and came to the conclusion that she's got some chronic swelling. Since she can wear it with her brace, she's still wearing the sleeve to help with the swelling. We are moving forward with the Botox injection. He's concerned that she is rolling out a lot more when she walks and her heel cord seems to be getting tighter. The Botox will weaken the muscle. In conjunction with the Botox, she's also getting a new brace. It's going to wrap around her foot to help hold it straighter and will also have a bigger wedge on the outside to keep her from rolling out. She was casted for it today and we'll go back to get it in three weeks. Hopefully the two things together will kind of stretch things out again and make Alison's gait a little better.

Dr. Craig's office made an appointment with Dr. Hurvitz for us. The earliest they could get us in is Feb. 2. I know that Dr. Hurvitz said he wanted Alison to take a "nap" over at Mott while he did the procedure, so he won't be doing it in the office that day. We need to check and see if we really need to have this appointment or if we can just schedule the procedure.

Alison had her follow-up appointment with Dr. Horbal, the allergist, today. We sat in the exam room for so long I was sure they forgot about us.....nearly 45 minutes for a 5 minute appointment. Alison tried Zyrtec for a month and now she's trying Claritin, to see which one works better for her. He said that she looks a lot better than she did a month ago. The inflamation is going down and her ears are clear today. We're going to keep doing what we're doing and do another check up in a couple of months.

Alison had another appointment with Dr. Craig today. We thought it was perfect timing. It was a professional development day, so Alison had no school. We were heading to Ohio for Thanksgiving and the doctor's office is on the way so we thought we'd be able to just pop in to the appointment and be on our way, arriving in plenty of time for dinner. That was not the case. We were in Brighton about 45 minutes early for our appointment so we decided to kill some time at Target. We got to the office 15 minutes before the appointment time and the waiting room was packed. There were at least 6 people ahead of us, still in the waiting room. Turns out they double book the appointments assuming that some patients just won't show up but everyone was showing up today. So we waited and we waited and we waited. Some people gave up and rescheduled, including a family that had come down from further north than we live. We finally got called in at 3:45, an hour and 45 minutes late. It was a quick appointment. We were out of there by 4:00. Unfortunately, we still had 3 more hours of driving ahead of us. Alison's ankle is still getting pretty swollen. He put her in another Ace wrap, which is not ideal, and said we should look for an ankle sleeve. I wouldn't have even thought they made them small enough for Alison's little foot. He told us we should look at a sporting goods store, since it's not something we'd find at a drug store. We're still waiting for this leg/ankle business to get straightened out before we talk about whether or not to do the Botox injection. We go back again in 6 weeks, so hopefully things will be better then and we'll get to discuss it. I verified that it's ok for us to be doing e-stim on Alison's leg again, which I hadn't started back up because her ankle was still swollen, and will be calling to get her back in to PT at the hospital.

I dropped Alison's prescriptions off at the pharmacy last week and was told that Xyzal was new and they didn't keep the liquid in stock yet so it wouldn't be in until the next day. No problem. We still had the sample from the doctor's office. The next day, Friday, came and we still couldn't get it. Saturday Kevin went to pick everything up and found that our insurance doesn't cover Xyzal or the particular type of epi pens that the doctor prescribed. Yesterday I tried to get in touch with the doctors office, only to, unknowingly, get transferred to the Bay City office, where they can't answer questions from patients at the Midland office. So today I was finally able to talk to someone, learned that a new prescription for covered epi pens had been faxed to the pharmacy and that we could try Zyrtec or Claritin or both and see which one works better for Alison. So we have our epi pens and are going to start with Zyrtec, since we learned that Xyzal is the next generation of Zyrtec.

Alison ended up at Urgent Care this afternoon. Kevin took her to the movies while I was still away on a "girls shopping weekend." She barely made it through the movie because her ear was hurting and she apparently has a raging ear infection. So she's back on Amoxicillan, 3 times a day for 7 days. Hopefully we'll be done with all this once the antibiotics are done.

We've been operating under the assumption that Alison is allergic to peanuts for at least the last two years. If you eat peanut butter and then say you're tongue is itchy, you're probably allergic to peanuts. So, you don't eat peanuts or peanut butter Today Alison saw the allergist to be tested so we know for sure. Nothing like trying to keep an anxious 6 year old from scratching while having a scratch test done. But I came prepared with distractions and Alison did pretty well. And yes, Alison is now officially allergic to peanuts. Wonderful. Could he just test for that? Of course not. He also tested her for some tree nuts because they can be cross reactive, and she's not allergic to those. However, he also tested her for dust mites and mold and she is allergic to both. So not only are we going to be the proud owners of 4 new epi pens (anyone care to explain how I've managed to live with a tree nut allergy for 36 years without an epi pen?), but Alison is also going to be taking allergy medicine every day and he wants us to get a Hepa filter for her bedroom. Curiously, he did not test for latex allergy, but did say taking latex precautions was a wise idea, just in case. So, Alison will try out the sample of the medicine he prescribed, I will drop off the prescriptions for the epi pens and the medicine in the morning, we'll be shopping a Hepa filter, and we'll be back in a month to see how things are going. At least I was able to get an after school appointment.