Allergic to Shots

So I took my beautiful, fun, spunky, and lately overly snotty-nosed Gracyn to the doctor the other day.  She has a birthmark under her chin, which you can slightly see here:

She calls it her angel kiss.  I noticed a few weeks (or perhaps months) ago that it had gotten darker and possibly bigger, and there was starting to get some hair on it.  And more than anything, I didn't want her to turn 13 and look like this:

So we trucked ourselves into the doctor Monday morning to have my furry little monkey checked out.  While we were checking in and handing over our autobiography of illnesses, Gracyn started coughing and sneezing.  And while the nurse was wiping snot off the back of her monitor, she explained that the doctor was also an allergy specialist and had I ever had my little furry monkey tested for allergies.  Um, yeah, I've thought about it, yeah, she always coughing and sneezing, so we signed up for that too.

So they shuffle us back to the waiting room, and I smile past the eye rolling on our third trip to the potty, where I decide to consult with the greatest doctor on earth, Dr. Google, about what allergy testing actually consists.  With my i-phone in one hand and my 3 year old in the other, I am wiping butts and trying to pinch squeeze enlarge the microscopic print, where I see ".....pricking or puncturing the skin with a needle or similar device."  Whaaa Huh??? puncturing? Needle?? craptastic.  Gonna be a great time!

So we return to the waiting room, which is approximately 3feet by 3feet, where my children rapidly accepted the challenge of turning tongue depressors into weapons, using the bed as a trampoline, playing basketball with the jar of cotton-balls and the trash can, transferring all band-aids and q-tips from their glass containers into the magazines below the examining table, and blowing the latex gloves into ballons. A sterile preschool nirvanna.  The nurse finally decided to come in just in time to join us for our hand-sanitizer bath.  Followed shortly by the dermatologist/allergist doctor who was informed by my middle daughter that the Little Mermaid tie that he had on was confusing her because Little Mermaid was for girls and ties were for boys. 

Meanwhile I'm trying to download a few new games on the phone that is limping along on a sliver of a battery so that my 3 year old has something to do while her sister starts swelling up like this:

So Whitley is whining mad that the phone is now dead, Gracyn is mad cause she can't play the new game and panicked that she is about to be turned into a human pin cushion, and they come in with over 100 needle looking items.  Let the fun begin. They then begin the scratch and prick test that ends up looking like this, which she did amazingly well with:

So you are looking at her sweet little back.  There are approximately 100 blue lines and she received a little scratch on either side of the lines, and then some more on her arms.  We were then released from jail to enjoy a one hour lunch at the fine dining establishment of McDonalds.  When we returned, we were informed that she was allergic to everything that they tested her for.  And not just allergic, but severly allergic. 

They suggested that I try to keep my house free of dust...  that maybe vacuuming and washing her sheets daily would help to improve her symptoms.  To which I replied, "Oh yes, I love to clean and I do it every day, I will most certainly vacuum and wash as much as I can."  as if.  They went down the list of common things that she was allergic to...  cats, dogs, dust, mold, grass, trees, planet earth... To which Gracyn replied...  "Um, I'm not allergic to candy!" 

So she received her first allergy shot like a champ, and will now need to go twice a week to receive an shots, which should be great entertainment in and of itself.  In the car on the way home, we were discussing what would happen at the doctor for her next "shot"...  to which she replied "Mom, I think I'm allergic to shots."  Me too, dear.  Me too!