Good news!

Great news, actually! It’s looking like Ari & Aviv will be able to have a regular kid experience at school in the Fall! We got permission today from the SAFAR team for Ari to go to school without restrictions – he doesn’t need a nut free classroom and can eat whatever food is shared/given out, even if it has nuts in it. This is HUGE! There seems to be a lot of food preparation in the classrooms at his school, and many school-wide events with food, and he wasn’t able to participate previously, having instead to eat a snack from his ‘safe snacks’ bag. No more. Now he can experience the foods with the others, as he loves to do. The SAFAR team was so thrilled with how minor his skin test reaction was at his ‘week 24’ day and how he was able to double his maintenance dose with no reactions that they’re comfortable with him being without restrictions. As for Aviv, he still needs to pass his ‘week 24’ food challenge and graduate into maintenance mode, but assuming that occurs, they are very hopeful that he won’t need a nut free classroom either, and that he can eat food shared at school. The restriction for him will likely be that he shouldn’t eat anything with actual nuts, outside of his dose, outside of our view, since he has had some reactions along the way. Considering how hard it is to get him to eat his required nuts, I’m pretty sure he’s not going to feel bad about not being able to eat even more. This news is fantastic, and we’re so thrilled. We still want to see Aviv graduate (his appointment is in one month) and be officially given the green light, but this is very promising. (They will still need to keep EPI pens around, just in case, until they test negative to skin tests.)

Aviv’s updose was uneventful today, which is exactly how we want it. The staff mentioned that his breathing test (which is what he does at the beginning of every appointment, due to his asthma) was very strong today, which was reassuring to hear. It hasn’t always been, during these past six months. Also notable was that Aviv mentioned that he was proud of himself for the way today’s appointment went… we feel he’s often too hard on himself, and it’s good to see him feeling a sense of achievement.  Ari has taken an interest in more of the details of the study, asking today to see pictures of his skin test results, and wanting to know how we know it improved since the beginning. He seemed very pleased to be able to identify from the markings which skin reaction was for which nut (“the H must be for hazelnut, right, Ima? That one has the biggest reaction”), and liked his role in confirming the facts.

Now for some Jeopardy-style metrics…

-What is 3lbs? The weight of the nuts consumed by A&A in one week. Aviv is currently eating ¼ of a pound of nuts per day, and will get to 1/3 of a pound per day by maintenance. [Pic of 4 days worth of Aviv’s dose, to the right.]

-What is 60? The number of nuts Ari is required to eat per day.

-What is 104? The number of nuts that will be in Aviv’s daily required maintenance dose. (He’s at 84/day currently.)

-What is 4? The number of people who are sleeping better in our house tonight. : )