Day 10: Camp Nom Nom

Day 10 of 30

Camp is starting to get real. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning they do a weight check, along with the usual vitals check, so they can measure the progress and make tweaks if necessary. Today is a milestone. She FINALLY broke the 20 pound mark. To most other kids, this is no big deal and they passed it awhile ago (if they are chunky, a long time ago). But for Olivia, she's hovered at the 18-19 lb mark for so long, gaining and losing, that this is big for her.

Today they started adding Pediasure to her meal times instead of water and it's making a difference. Afterall, water is empty calories and drinking Pediasure by mouth is what's going to get her off the tube fastest. I'm starting to really look forward to meetings with the nutritionist. Every time she comes and talks to me, I learn something new. I definitely do see her making vast changes in her eating patterns, but there's nothing like numbers to just take your breath away. Today she said that at first they thought she'd be averaging 50 calories a day by mouth but she's really looking at 150 calories by mouth (this is before Pediasure!) It's enough to take a whole tube feeding away! That's huge for us, it's always been a faraway goal, but never reality until now. They've also added to her menu. Instead of yogurt and applesauce, she's now willing to eat pureed sweet potatoes, vanilla pudding and potato soup. At home, she would play with the purees and might, just might put a finger or two in her mouth, but it all depended on her mood. 

She's still hating VitalStim and it's the reason why Session 2 has such low volumes. She spends the whole time pulling off the electrodes and crying in frustration. It's was wrapped around her neck with a large quantity of bandage wrap in the beginning of the session. I was playing with my phone and when I looked up, it was around her head. She looked so miserable, but so funny, I started laughing and couldn't stop. Poor baby!

Desperate measures

Food log:
2/27  
Session 1: 32g  
Session 2: 12g 
Session 3: 26g  
Session 4: 30g  
Liquids log:
2/27  
Session 1: 28g 
Session 2: 16g 
Session 3: 41g 
Session 4: 39g