For the last six months, our daughter has had a constant stuffed up nose.  She has became a mouth breather 100% of the time.   We tried antibiotics, over-the-counter decongestants,  the neti pot, all with no relief.   A visit to the ENT revealed that she has deviated septum which is severe enough she will need surgery, but the doc wanted to see why she has constant congestion. So off we went,  with a referral in hand, to an allergist,  to get her skin tested.

She has never had allergies, but this year, something changed.   My baby girl is allergic to everything, with the exception of two things:  dogs & cockroaches.  Looks painful, doesn’t it?

Her allergies are so bad we were told she should not go outside,  have no open windows in the car or the house ever,  she needs to take showers all the time, and they recommended she get shots twice a week. I’m not exaggerating.  No open windows, ever.

Then the doctor said he thinks her allergy symptoms will dramatically lessen when we move to Singapore, as they don’t have trees that pollinate, and we should hold off on the shots until we make the move and see what happens.  Sounds reasonable to me, so we took the presecription for Flonase and Zyrtek.  She has experienced slight improvement of her symptoms, until yesterday.

With the combination of a late spring in the upper-midwest and an extremely windy day,  the newly budding trees were spreading their pollen all over the place.  The kids had an all-day swim meet, so she was outside only to go from the car into the natatorium, back to the car, and then into Panda Express (she loves Chinese food, even Americanized Chinese food)  and back to the car  (the boys had McDonalds).   But she was out there long enough to react to the allergens in the air.  She was also lucky enough to have a piece of something land right in her left eye.

By the time evening rolled around, her eye was nearly swollen shut, watery, and extremely painful.   A trip to the ER this morning, and we find that it not only a severe allergic reaction, but also she has a scratched cornea.

She gets to wear an eye patch for a few days, and probably miss a few days of school too.  Poor kid cannot keep her eyes open!

She says she is rockin the pirate look!  And I have to agree!!

After finding out that she has such severe allergies, it only seemed right to make the boys go through the same testing, ya know?  They saw the photos of their sisters back, and were a bit leery of this appointment.

Turns out, both my boys have allergies too!!   This first picture below is son #1:

And this is son #2:

The good news is that they have the twin sharing thing going on still … between the two of them they tested positive for everything!

So we have more reasons to be excited and look forward to our move to Singapore!   Tropical weather & foliage,  one year-long season,  no ragweed or pollinating trees & grasses, and hopefully no more allergic reactions!!!