ShrimpTASTIC!

What an exciting week last week was! To start it all off - Ron found out on Tuesday that his leave for our Disney trip in July was approved by the Army! Which means there SHOULD be nothing that could possibly get in our way for an amazing honeymoon together in only 2 weeks!!!

A few really annoying and frustrating days lead up to the next awesome event, that ocurred later in the week.

Let me give you some background info:

When I was about 8 yrs old I attended a holiday party at my aunts house. I decided to try a bite of shrimp for the first time. I had eaten other types of shellfish before, and things were just fine. I took one bite, and didn't like it. A few hours later on the ride home I started to itch pretty bad, and when we got to our house my Mom checked my tummy and back, which were covered in hives! She gave me some benedryl and I was alllll better.

So - needless to say, every since then I have been avoiding shrimp at ALL costs, really. I have passed on many dishes simply because I was 'afraid' there might be shrimp in it, and wouldn't even kiss Ron or drink a beverage after him if he had eaten shrimp that day. I have also (just about) given myself panic attacks when I was afraid that I could have eaten something that looked just a bit like shrimp, or if I thought my food might have been cooked with shrimp. I'm a hypochondriac and this whole allergic to shrimp thing was really putting a damper on my ability to enjoy foods that I didn't cooked myself. One of the most difficult types of meals to enjoy were my sushi meals - which, if you know me, you know that I absolutely LOVE. I really really do. I have continued to eat all other kinds of shellfish (every kind, I think....OH except crawfish, which we want to try!) and I have never had a reaction.

Anywho - to make a short story long, I had been telling myself (and Ron) that I really wanted to get an allergy test since I have never been seen by an allergist in my life. After putting it off way too much I finally decided to make an appointment. I had one scheduled for back in April I think and BOY was I excited for it! Ron went with me, on to post, for what I thought would be the allergy test. But nope, turns out they do not do allergy tests on post, they only refer you to someone who does. So I was reffered, had to wait a few weeks for the refferal to go through, and then made an appointment. So back in May I went to see this here allergist, and received a 'scratch' test (which - by the way was not at ALL a scratch, it was more like 10,000 needles in my back!). This test came back negative for all shellfish (yes!), and positive for dust mites (yuck)! Unfortunately my doctor wanted me to get a blood test to be absolutely sure considering shellfish & peanuts are the two most deadliness allergies. I got my blood taken the next week, and then scheduled a follow-up appointment for this past Thursday.

I went in on Wednesday (once again overly excited to get my results) and was again let down when the Dr. told me that the results from the blood test had not yet come in. Why couldn't they check for that before I came all the way in for an appointment? Good thing I don't have to pay a co-pay! They gave the lab a call but of course they had to leave a message. I called them back on Wednesday night before the office closed to see if the results had come in and guess what - NO RESULTS. I then called on Thursday at about noon to see if the results were in and guess what - nope, you're wrong - the results WERE in! But was the Dr. ready to look them over and get on the phone with me? OF COURSE NOT. The nurse assured me that he would be calling me right back, but after waiting for 4 hours I decided to give them another call before the office closed (wow - I sure was a pain in the behind)! The nurse said he would either call me right back, or call me the next day, Friday. I gave her a (nice) piece of my mind and guess what - NO CALL that night. The next morning though, he did call me...thank goodness! Guess what he had to say to me...

I'M NOT ALLERGIC TO SHRIMP!!!! WOOHOO!!! :-)

Oh - and I forgot to mention that we drove 30 minutes to the closest fresh (sorta) fish place and purchased a whole pound of shrimp to eat for dinner on Wednesday. Guess we were a bit premature on that one. We froze it, and took it out to thaw on Thursday night to enjoy on Friday. It is now Monday night and I have eaten shrimp every day since and I LOVE it!!!

My first shrimp tasting took place on Friday afternoon. Ron took two of the shrimp out of the fridge and cooked them up (one for me, one for him). Here's a picture of me eating my first shrimp in 15 years!!!



On Friday night we had the Wrights over for some grilling. We each had steak, grilled mixed veggies, some crostini bread, AND tequila lime marinated shrimp!





Everything was so good....ESPECIALLY the Shrimp!

On Saturday we spent the day at our friends house and pool. I made a pasta & baby shrimp salad! YUMMY! For dinner we went out to get some sushi at our favorite Japanese restaurant and LET ME TELL YOU - boy was I missing something! We have discovered our new favorite sushi roll there, which includes Shrimp Tempura! SO GOOD!

Yesterday (Sunday) I ate the leftover shrimp sushi for lunch :-)

And today we once again went to get sushi - and for dinner we simply ate a platter of boiled shrimp. Talk about shrimp overload! Haha...I should probably cool it now, so I don't get sick of it (if that's possible). Ron has been really busy studying (he is checking tomorrow for BWS!) so I offered to clean and devein the shrimp. WHAT A CHORE! I think I'll get the already deveined shrimp next time. The real reason why it was such a pain in the butt for me was because by accident I took out the vein that was on the belly of the shrimp. After I boiled them and gave them an ice bath I noticed the poop along their backs. I just don't understand why they call it a vein - its just a line of poop! The real vein is on its belly! So after I cooked them I had to take the poopy out...which took another 10 minutes. GRRRR, BUT they were delicious! Here I am enjoying one:



So as you can see this past week was pretty darn awesome! Only two weeks until vaca...hmm what to do to keep busy? Hang out with the hubs of course! After tomorrow he'll only have to PT in the AM and report in at 11am. Yay!

That's all folks!