Our FPIES diagnosis was a curve bat that finally settled me down. Just kidding – it opened up an entire new world of medical terms, symptom tracking and enough “poop pictures” for medical staff to see that would make your head spin.
Oh, BTW FPIES stands for Food Protein-Induced Enterocolitis Syndrome and is a type of food allergy affecting the gastrointestinal tract. The main symptoms are vomiting, diarrhea, and dehydration.
Wait, wait. I know what your going to say, “Lady – the phrase is curve ball”.
No world – not in this case. In this case it’s far more appropriate to say that FPIES is a giant wooden bat that was swung in my direction, and I definitely didn’t doge it in time. But I’ve learned that that’s okay.
Chronically ill children are in themselves a blessing in disguise. Without FPIES I wouldn’t have learned the entire process of digestion, how to appropriately decline any and all meal invitations, how to tear apart a food label faster than you can whip out Google and most importantly, to tell you in far too much detail, what my son can currently (not) eat and why.
The thing is, whether your child is special needs, high needs, chronically ill, or somewhere in between, the real lesson to take away is becoming their advocate. And in doing so, you tend to learn a lot of skills that could be otherwise seen as useless. But they aren’t to me, or to any other mother who has had to go through the ringer to be told, “yes mama – you’re right.”
However; if you can get two allergy mamas in the same room and ask them for the top ten cross contaminated grocery store food items – you’ve got the WWE of the medical world. Lame? Probably…but we think we’re pretty cool.
