Day 9: Camp Nom Nom

Day 9 of 30

What a fun day! We woke up to a package delivery to our door. We opened to find a cute pillow from Aunties April, Sandra and Judy. It had a printed picture of our family with a good luck message. How they knew that she loves pillows and likes to smash her face in them, I just don't know! We also don't have a printed picture up here, just digital ones. She quickly pointed out Daddy. I asked her where she was and she pointed at Sophie. Close, I suppose. Thank you, Aunties! We miss you!

Today in breakfast, she took another whopping amount. She still threw up after her nap, but ate a good bit anyways. In speech therapy she took 25g of strawberry pediasure and 20g of blended potato soup. Both are new to her, which is good news because she's not used to it - especially the pediasure. She's used to drinking only water so this is amazing to me that she's even taking the pediasure.

The speech therapist wanted to try a new (to me) treatment called VitalStim during her speech sessions. VitalStim is a treatment for those who have trouble swallowing. It is basically electrical stimulation on her neck to help the swallowing muscles contract and "remember" their function. Too bad she absolutely hates the sensation of the electric stimulations. She cries a ton, but I'm conflicted. Olivia has technically passed her last test that cleared her to drink thin liquids, but she still sputters and coughs a lot. She's had VitalStim done to her three times already and she's already taking bigger sips of water.

The hospital knows it's not all work and no play. They have a program called ChildLife and it's dedicated to kid play. They have daily activities (kind of like a nursing home) and it varies from week to week. Today was sponge painting. Yeah, I wasn't going to let her just go crazy with the paint since we don't usually let her dabble in it. It would have ended up everywhere but paper. But I did let her dip a finger or two in.

For so long we've had doctors and therapists saying that her condition is one in which she must grow out of, and it can be slow progress. God has shown me a way and covered our family with mercy and grace by giving us hope through this program. She's eaten so much these last few days and our feeding team is very shocked at how well she's doing. They had much lower expectations and she's exceeded most of them. She's even gained weight, which she hadn't done in so long. Keep it up!

Food log:
2/26
Session 1: 42g
Session 2: 19g
Session 3: 24g
Session 4: 33g

Liquids log:
2/26
Session 1: 15g
Session 2: 36g
Session 3: 23g
Session 4: 25g