I was wrong!

Not too long ago I gave both our puppies away thinking my 2 year old is allergic to dogs. I was wrong. Which is good news and bad news. Good news because now I can have a dog again, bad news because I gave my two little cuddlers away.

I wish I knew what my son reacted to, it seemed so obvious that it was the dogs. No more jumping to conclusions. Should anything like this ever come up again, he will get officially tested before I take any action. Ugh! and Yay!

I just don't know how to feel about this.

I am going through the heartbreak of giving away a very special kitten because I could not afford his veterinary expenses. I can understand how you must be feeling over this.

I am giving myself permission to have a tears and kleenex kind of day for a few days and let the big emotions come out. The reaction to the loss of this kitten has ripped open other unresolved losses in the past.

For you, I think accepting the fact that the puppies are gone and forgiving yourself for giving them away. Emotions are very difficult to accept and deal with and they tend to build upon each other. Emotions love emotions. There are primary emotions and secondary emotions.

One thing I do is collages. I open a magazine and tear out pictures that resemble the emotion and paste them on a poster board. This helps to identify the emotion and to contain it, get it out of my head. I will be doing this today to help me over the loss of my kitten.

Not sure if this is the kind of response you were looking for or not, but hope it helps.

Thank you so much! Your reply was very helpful. I like the idea of making collages about my emotions. I'm going to have to try that.

I'm sorry about your kitty. What a heartbreaking decision that must have been.

Let me know how the collages work out for you. One thing I learned is to "tear" out the pictures, not to cut them out. The tearing helps release part of the emotion, at least that I what I found. I have some of them up on my walls. I use old calendars to make the pretty ones, but the ones that are containing emotions, I keep closed up in a container.

I usually use oversized construction paper and a glue stick to glue the pictures on.

Sorry about your puppies, whenwillitend, and about your kitty, hummingbird. I know how hard it is to have to give up a pet.

Not sure if either of you do scrapbooking. But it helped me to take the pictures I had of my dog and put them in a scrapbook, so I could remember her. It was tough at first to look at the pictures but it also helped to know that I could always look at them and remember her. Just a suggestion.

Again hugs to both of you.

That's a great idea PleaseHelp. Thank you !!! Tomorrow I will visit my local craft store and see what they have there. I think that would help.

I remember your previous post and how terrible it was for your son and the heartache of having to give them away. I was thinking about his reaction to whatever it might have been. I would go for allergy testing, if you can, now while he is not reacting to anything to see if you can find out what triggers his immune response, that way you'll know for the future. It would help him in the long run and so there is less of a guessing game, also it will help to have possible treatments on hand should he come in contact with whatever.

I am so sorry for you that this has happened. My heart still breaks for you and hoping your son is doing better meanwhile.

Thank you all!

I was told by our old Pediatrician that at this age they don't do allergy testing, although I didn't quite understand why. Last year they suspected allergies in my now 8 year old, and without any testing the Pediatrician just put him on Zyrtec. Same happened with the 2 year old. Zyrtec didn't do squat for either one of them, looks like it was just a lingering cold in both of them. But yeah, he wouldn't do any allergy tests in either one of them.
We have a new doctor now, and I really like him (thanks to having Tricare we never got a choice), so I think I'll bring it up again with him.

Meanwhile, we have a new dog. And I think we hit the jackpot. He is absolutely AWESOME! He can't replace the ones we gave away, but he is definitely a worthy successor.

I'm sorry you had to give your doggies away but I just saw Gus!! Glad you have him now, he is so cute.

I have a friend whose son was allergy tested at 1 1/2 b/c he had been having some bad reactions to things. So I find it weird that your old doc wouldn't do testing. I would definitely ask the new one.

Glad you have a new dog.

Yeah, I couldn't stand the old doc. I will definitely ask the new doc. Ha, it's a civilian doctor now, I could actually call and ask!!! That's an option we didn't have before!

I do know one thing. Please don't feel guilty. You made the best decision you could to protect your son in a difficult situation. It was a mistake but not a malicious wrong. You said you learned something and now have awesome Gus! Try to focus on the good and not the failure. ((((when)))) Besides, dogs are wonderfully resilient creatures.