Nes, Gadol, Haya, Poh

As Chanukah drew to a close the other night, I couldn’t help but reflect on the past, both recent and long ago. Just one short year ago at this time, I ordered Ari & Aviv specially-made chocolate coins (a traditional Chanukah treat) from a nut-free factory, so that we could bring them with us to all the Chanukah parties we went to. I remember standing at those parties worrying as they touched the wrapped coins (that we didn’t provide) while playing dreidel games, fearful that the coins had been touched previously by another kid who had eaten something with nuts, and left deadly oils on the wrappers. Beyond the chocolate coins we brought with, there was almost nothing they could eat at the Chanukah parties we went to. Not this year. This year, they ate everything, and I do mean everything… latkes, cookies, jelly doughnuts, chocolates, candies, appetizers… whatever was served, they ate. I felt I needed to apologize to one friend when Ari did his best to make up for the past few years of not being able to eat anything at her annual party by wiping out several candy bowls and an appetizer platter. Both kids gorged themselves on menorah-shaped cookies, and played freely in rooms filled with kids and treats without me having to watch over them with fear.

Which brings me to Chanukah from long ago…  Many of you may be familiar with the letters on dreidels (the Hebrew letters Nun, Gimil, Hay and Shin) which stand for the phrase ‘a great miracle happened there,’ referring to the miracle of the oil that burned for 8 nights thousands of years ago, when it should only have lasted for one. The interesting thing is that those are the letters on American dreidels. In Israel, the final letter is Pey, not Shin, which stands for ‘here’, not ‘there’. This year at Chanukah, I felt that we should be playing with an Israeli dreidel, as a great miracle happened here. This time last year, we had just finished the oral food challenges, and were preparing to begin the Xolair in January. Last December, we couldn’t have imagined the true miracles that would occur in this one year, with both boys desensitizing to all of their nuts, and Aviv going negative to five of his six nuts. Nes, Gadol, Haya, Poh (“a great miracle happened here”), indeed.

And if it doesn’t seem too greedy, I’m going to wish for another miracle. Ari is really struggling with his daily dose… it fills his stomach up so much that it hurts, and he yearns to eat normally. He was a kid that had such a refined palate and love of food, and he is sad each day that his ‘regular food’ opportunities are limited so that he doesn’t fill up too much and not be able to finish his dose.  We can’t help but remember his words several months ago, when he lamented that, “We did this study so that we could eat anything we wanted, but the truth is, we can’t because we have to eat dose.”  He sees Aviv’s amazing progress, and he’s frustrated every day. A&A’s next round of tests is mid-January, and we’re hoping that Ari goes negative to at least one nut. I’m going to hope for our dreidel to land on Pey that day.