We headed up Tuesday with Emma and Owen to meet Katy and Alex after his latest OIT appt. Sarah and her 2 joined us. We had talked about seeing the alleyways in downtown and the kids were game to climb at the gym, so it worked out kind of last-minute to head that way.
There was a celebratory feel to the day, Alex has been increasing his dosage for months now and is doing SO well with the treatment. He was given the all-clear to eat at places that use peanut oil! So before we all headed home, we stopped at Five Guys and had dinner together. It was amazing to see him eating fries cooked in peanut oil. I have spent the past 10 years not even having peanuts in the house for fear that when he visited, he'd somehow be exposed to a poorly washed peanut butter spoon or come across a stash of nuts (because we routinely just put food on things I guess). And he's not even my kid. I can't imagine how Katy must be feeling.
OIT is, basically, the Dread Pirate Roberts cure. Under a doctors supervision, patients are given TINY increments of foods that trigger allergic reactions and do so daily, increasing the amounts each visit and over the course of about a year, their lives are changed. Alex will never sit down and eat a jar of nuts, but if he eats a piece of candy or is exposed other ways-like the Thai place getting a splash of peanut sauce on his noodles-he won't have to whip out the Epi pen and rush to the ER. He's getting to have a life without that niggling fear. That's amazing!!
We didn't meet up until 2, so Sarah and I grabbed lunch with our assorted kids and then headed downtown where we paid for parking (and may I say ACK) and found a semi-useful map for seeing the 5 alleys.
One of these things is not like the other
At this point, we headed back toward the cars, stopping at the Moon Pie store and a candy store!
Katy, Emma, Owen, Chan, Beck and Sophia all stopped in at the rock climbing place. Ben has a poison oak rash from our camping trip (unrelated to the one I have from pulling up ivy in the yard last week). My rash looks like I have acne of the wrist. His looks like we held a hot clothes iron to his arm. It started as a bumpy patch and quickly grew and evolved into an oozing crusty patch.
He opted to not climb because along with looking like a bad burn, it feels like one, too.
Alex decided to hang out with Ben so he wouldn't be lonesome.
So, the boys, Sarah, and I walked across the Walnut Street Bridge and hung out north of the river a while before walking back on the other bridge Chestnut?
I totally approve of painting trees because it's beautiful, but I am pretty sure it's horrible for the tree-isn't bark some type of skin, as in it needs to breathe? I should look that up If only there was a way...
Hunter Museum is looking a little precariously perched. I mean more than usual.
The only thing keeping the whole building from tumbling into oncoming traffic!
We joined everyone back at the gym and watched the climbers for a bit.
They were exhausted at this point, so the city got some abuse. It's all legs, so everyone could let their tired arms rest!
They would jump to the highest building, then dive off, it never stopped being terrifying!
We had dinner downtown and then Ben and Chan and I went back to see the bamboo and sparkle alleys lit for night.
