Monday, August 28, 2017

Buzzy bee review

To be precise, we got the Buzzy Ladybug (LadyBuzz), but other than the paint, the premise is the same; put a cute vibrating toy insect with ice pack 'wings' on the arm above the injection or blood draw site, and you won't notice the pain so much.  We have been putting off our biannual blood draws since coming to Germany (for 18 months!  Ouch! Bad parents! But we weren't getting along with our pediatrician, who was refusing to send us to a geneticist or lipidologist, so we were feeling very unmotivated...) and so today was our first time to try it out!  Monica did really well with it.  For the first time in years she wasn't screaming and kicking at me, struggling to get away, which is nice!  I often think these blood draws are harder on me and Dad than they are on the girls.  She did well with watching the ipad instead of watching the needle going in, and I don't think she hardly noticed pain. She still gets a little traumatized by the bandage itself - they always seem to do the gauze pad and coban rather than just a band aid, probably to decrease bruising - but I can also see that it looks like more of a 'serious' bandage, showing that something seriously bad happened to her. Perception affects reality!  She even stuck around watching from the hall to see Teresa get her blood drawn, which was significantly more traumatizing for everyone involved (three pokes and still not enough blood!)


I tried to make the Buzzy Ladybug more approachable and familiar by letting Teresa play with it a week before the day of the blood draw.  She apparently whacked it a little too much in her enthusiastic investigation, however, because now you have to whack it again to turn it on.  Actually, trying to turn it on again right now, it's not working at all... this gadget may have been single use for us!  For $40, yikes...  So maybe let them examine it before the day of the blood draw, but not walk off with it.  It's a good concept and, for parents looking for literally anything to make these blood draws less traumatizing, it seems a good investment.  Even if it's 'just' a distraction and doesn't actually take the pain away, what's the difference?  When no end of toys, movies, video games, singing, or conversation can distract your child during a blood draw, but a fancy ice pack and a buzzing gadget actually DOES work at keeping their attention?

Invaluable.

Tuesday, August 22, 2017

Don't order (or let your doctor order) more than you can chew

Not her expression at blood draw time
I adore lab personnel that can draw blood on my daughters' tiny arms.
Having attempted many a blood draw and IV myself, and failing innumerable times on the healthiest and plumpest of veins, I am always willing to wait for the best 'peds stick' to come back from lunch or wherever he or she has gone.  That being said, wonderful as they are, keep in mind that lab personnel generally have no idea why they are drawing the labs that they are drawing.  This morning my 2 year old, fasting and grumpy, went in for her blood to be drawn, and when they chose which tube to fill with the most blood, they chose the tube that
had to be sent to another facility for evaluation of her fatty acids and fat
soluble vitamins.  It makes sense to some extent - those labs will take
longer to get back, so if we are going to repeat a blood draw, might as well
repeat the one that we can just get the results of in our own facility!  The
thing is, I don't really care about her fatty acids and fat soluble
vitamins.  All right, if we already have the blood, I don't mind checking
it.  But the lipid panel and triglycerides are all I REALLY care about,
especially since she's fasting!  Fatty acid and fat soluble vitamin panels
don't require fasting!  If the lab personnel had asked us (but what do
parents know?) we would have emphatically explained that the lipid panel was far more important than any other lab.  I bet they've never faced the wrath of a fasting 2 year old and haven't thought about it much.  But I have.  And now I am trying to come to terms with bringing my baby girl back to that same horrifying lab next week, to repeat a fasting lab draw.  It's sure to imprint itself on her memory in a special way, such that she won't be able to even see the lab in the future without starting to cry and scream.  Sigh.

Other tips for blood draws on little ones:
-always ask for pediatric sized tubes.  It's pathetic to see the little baby drops of blood in a giant grown-up sized tube, and it's unnecessary for many labs to have that much blood.
-warn the technicians, especially if they run the lab in the facility, to expect a highly lipemic (read: greasy) sample.  They might have to do fancy dilutions to figure out how many triglycerides are really in the sample, because the TGs of many folks with LPLD are literally off the chart.
-our typical supplies for blood draws include: ipad or portable DVD player, new toys (or ones hidden months ago and taken out as a surprise), water, granola bar for immediate post-draw calories, candy for just in case bribes.

How do you survive blood draws?

Thursday, August 3, 2017

Independence Day Fruit Pizza

When it comes to making a crowd pleaser that I don't have to feel too guilty about health-wise, this fruit pizza is one of my favorite recipes.  All whole wheat crust, with probiotic-rich yogurt and cream cheese topping, and fruit on top?  It's hardly a dessert!

This was my first time making a fat free version and it was a great success that I wanted to share with you.  For my non-LPLD family members, I made a half batch following the recipe.  Then I made a few modifications and made a second half batch fat free!  Instead of butter, I used apple sauce - the crust was definitely sweeter from the sweetness of the apples (I might leave out any sugar next time), but it was thin and crisp after baking and an excellent base for the rest!

Keeping track of which half was which, I baked it following the recipe, and after it cooled I put regular cream cheese and yogurt on the fatty half, and fat free cream cheese with fat free yogurt on the LPLD side.  Then I loaded it all down with fruit (the blueberries are on the LPLD side, if you're wondering) and brought it to our 4th of July picnic.

The adults enjoyed it and the kids gobbled it up, both sides of it!  Wild success!