The dairy saga continues

On Monday I intentionally ate some cow's milk cheese (cheddar in my omelet) after 9 months of abstaining from all cow's milk products. In fact, every day this week I've eaten some cow's milk cheese of some sort.....and....Evie seems to be doing fine. She was a little fussy today, but she is NOT bloated, she does NOT have red spots on her face and neck, she does NOT need intensive comforting constantly and she does NOT wake every 1 or 1.5 hours screaming and arching her back in pain and agony.

I can't even comprehend the possibilities that are opening up for my daily diet....and maybe, in a few weeks, Evie's!

It has been such a long 9 months of difficulties when shopping and eating out (if you are ever a waitperson and a customer with an allergy present him/herself at your table--TAKE IT SERIOUSLY! YOU COULD BE HURTING SOMEONE, MAYBE EVEN A BABY!). We've lived much of this time very happily in the sunshine of dairy-free life but the dark clouds of evil dairy products have constantly lurked nearby often coming on all of a sudden with weeks of pain and sadness for Evie. It takes about 2 weeks for dairy products to clear out of Evie's system after she's been exposed, so just one trip to a restaurant with a lying or inconsiderate or just plain stupid waitperson could lead to 2 weeks of trouble. The last time I went to a restaurant where someone lied to me about reading an ingredient label (and I know she knowingly lied because I forced her to show me the label she told me she had read...the label that had microwave directions on it instead of a list of ingredients!), I actually stood up for myself and my daughter. I told the person that her behavior was unacceptable and that I would not eat there since I couldn't be sure it was safe. I then wrote a letter to the owner of the restaurant--and received a very nice phone call of apology.

But, I digress. I just wanted to tell you about this testing process we're in right now and how tentatively good I'm feeling about it. I'm not sure what to try next. It seems that Evelyn has been most sensitive to the whey part of milk (as opposed to the curds part) so I suppose I should have something with whey in it. Maybe I will try yogurt next. I'd really like to try the fancy chocolate cake Michael's boss's wife is making tomorrow, but that might be too much of a jump:)