Little Loma Update

Just when you thought the Little Loma saga was over, think again. We too believed that once Paloma had her tonsils & adenoids out and her reflux was well controlled, our little pumpkin would be living the good life. Well, she has been until recently. Something inside me told me to get her into an allergist before the end of the year. Both her doctor and surgeon and requested it awhile back, but I had been procrastinating - until recently. Since she clearly met her deductible already for the year, we decided now would be the opportunity. Plus, there just was been a few things going on that I was hoping to get answers and rationals for.
So about a week and a half ago, I took her to see an allergist who spent 4 hours with us gaining history, evaluating, running tests, explaining, comforting, etc... We found out some shocking and not so shocking news. To begin, after having skin testing done, we did come to the conclusion that Paloma is in fact allergic to peanuts. That did not come as a surprise to me - but what did is how complicated and messy life becomes when you have a child with an allergy. We experienced it a bit with Mattea but nothing of this magnitude. Everywhere we go, our epi pen comes with us. Every bite of food that goes into her mouth is evaluated by mom and dad.
Well, that was OK - I guess. I had my suspicions and now I finally was able to have a confirmation and move forward - a bit more cautiously of course.
It didn't quite end there though. After taking a thorough history, the doctor felt it was in Paloma's best interest to obtain a head/sinus CT. This had been discussed in the past by other physician's but I had held off in hopes that surgery would be the "cure all." Paloma was such a trooper. After being in the doctors office for four hours, she sat still as a bug while the CT roared around her tiny little head. Results showed almost a totally occlusion of her sinuses on the left side and quite a bit of secretions in her right sinuses - but at least free air was seen on the right side. This would surely explain why the little turkey is still mouth breathing, continuing to wake frequently through the night, and why she is still a bit on the fussy side (nowhere near where she used to be might I add). This was probably more disturbing to me because I was really hoping after surgery my baby would start feeling better - start feeling "good" and start feeling normal.
The doctor believed she has just pretty much had a chronic sinus infection that never properly got treated and so now it may be a bit of a challenge to treat. His solution: place on a week long course of steroids to reduce inflammation and a 21 day course of antibiotics - UGH! That girl has been on so many antibiotics that the thought of 21 days of it made me nauseated. After voicing my concerns, and talking more about it, the decision was made to go ahead and place her on a one month course. We have to get her passages open and her back to breathing like the rest of us.
So, here we are. Her steroid burst is complete (praise God, she was a monster on that stuff.) And we are almost half way through her antibiotic course. Her GI track is taking a significant hit but we are popping probiotics into her and pushing yogurt until it is coming out of her ears. She has diarrhea 8-10 times a day - which makes potty training difficult. We did move her back to pull ups but her bum suffered a significant break down which forced us back into panties. UMMMM - a few pairs have since perished.
We are hopeful this will work - as of last night she slept the entire night uninterrupted. The night before she was up every hour or two.
Miss Little Loma has definitely caused us a bit more stress than our strong willed first child but despite it all we love her lots and lots and lots and lots. Who can possibly resist that face????