I just got an oh so welcome phone call, and I had to share.

You know that our two (nearly three) year old was officially diagnosed with Celiac Disease in February. Well, we had her follow up appointment on Wednesday to talk to the doctor, check her weight, check the antibody level in her blood, and see how we were handling the Gluten Free “ordeal”.

The doctor told us she was gaining weight like a champ (CD doesn’t allow the body to absorb nutrients when it’s fed gluten, so it’s hard to gain weight), and that she was hoping for any kind of downward progression (digression?) on the antibody levels.

When she was first tested in January/February, her levels were somewhere over 150. That’s as high as the blood test will show, so it was literally “above 150”. I was just praying on Wednesday that it had lowered enough to no longer be “above 150”.

Last time we were there, we were told that the whole family should be tested, too. It’s a genetic disease, and it can be triggered at any time during your life (if it is at all). Well, on Wednesday, I had brought along Henry and Ivy so we could go do something fun with Julie Mash and her clan afterward.

At our regular doctor’s office, the lab techs have a hard enough time taking MY blood. I was terrified to take the other kids there (who are terrified of EVERYTHING, especially shots) to get tested.

So, while we sat there talking to the doctor on Wednesday, I made the executive decision to go ahead and have the big two tested. It was never going to be anywhere near pleasant for them, but at Children’s Mercy, it would be the most pleasant it could possibly be. (Ervin didn’t go that day, because, well, four kids were too many for me to handle alone all afternoon, so he’ll have to be tested another day).

T took all three into the little room (separately), youngest to oldest, as I sat in the waiting area with the others, listening to the screams get progressively worse. Henry was, by far, the worst. T said that as the lab tech got closer and closer, he screamed “I don’t have a gluten free problem! I don’t have a gluten free problem!”

Can you see their band-aids? So brave(ish).

All that to say, I got the phone call with their results this morning.

Henry and Ivy’s celiac screenings were both negative. Yay! The doctor said that we’ll have to retest them in 2-3 years, or earlier if they start to show any symptoms.

Essie’s results seemed pretty dramatic to me. She was somewhere over 150 three months ago, remember, and now, 30. THIRTY! Yay!! We must be doing something right! We have to go back for another follow up in 3 months, they said, and hopefully then it will be even lower. (Normal is somewhere around 10, or lower)

Obviously, this is just the beginning of a long life of living gluten free for her, but it’s a great start!