The Adventures Continue

Each year, Dr. Allergy likes to get a good, solid idea of where we stand in the world of the Littles' allergies.  Children, still growing and becoming who they are, have minds made for learning.  And bodies, too.  Sometimes, those smart little bodies can learn over time that food is...food.  Not poison.
As you know, Little One has already passed the test on several foods Her body rejected when She was a baby.  So each year we take Her little immune system over to the clinic for some standardized testing, to see if it has learned anything.
Now that Missy is old enough, She gets to be drilled, too.

Literally.
The test involves rows of little pin pricks, each of which is exposed to a drop of something Dr. Allergy suspects could cause a reaction.
Now Little One does quite well in actual school.
But Her punk little immune system is kind of a slacker.  It is totally this guy:

Generally speaking, the thing never does it's homework, and has basically been held back in three different subjects for years.  So Little One's fill-in-the-circle sheet for this round of immunologic exams looked like this:

To see whether Her immune system had learned anything about not mistaking food for poison, and also to make sure it hasn't forgotten what it knew and started to be allergic to new things.  You can never tell with that renegade.
It's quite a lot of pinpricks.  But Little One knew that Missy was next.  That Missy was scared, and watching.  So She smiled through the whole pincushion process.  Moments afterwards, when those spots began to burn and itch, She got very quiet.
I went around front to check on Her, and found Her biting the chair, with tears streaming down Her face.  She didn't want to scare Her sister, so She suffered in silence.  It must have itched like crazy, too.  Because a moment or two was all it took to for Her immune system to start filling out the form.

FAIL.

Happily, there are no new allergies to contend with.  Unhappily, Her immune system has been cutting class and not studying at ALL.  Her allergist tells me not to even bother next year.
Let me put it this way.  A 3mm wheal is what counts as a solid positive reaction on a skin test.  Little One's measured in the high 20's.  Sigh. 
At least we have one motivated immune system in the family- Missy had much better results.

While She is still quite allergic to shellfish (no lobster dinners in this girl's future), Her tests for peaches, egg, and milk were negative!
So, to see if She's really outgrown the allergies, or if they've just improved enough not to flare on a scratch test, Missy's immune system gets to advance to final exams- food challenge.
Missy doesn't seem to quite grasp the implications of this yet (which is just as well since we have learned from Her sister that sometimes it doesn't work out as we hope).  But I'M excited! And Little One, though pretty disappointed with Her own results, is excited for Her sister too.
I will keep you Peanuts posted.  In the meantime, we shall continue to treat nuts, eggs, and milk as if they are radioactive when Little One is around, shall we?  And I can't help but think of Little Mister and muse, as Dr. Allergy did that day, "Hmm.  Wonder what this one has in store for us! Hopefully NOTHING."