Day 12: Camp Nom Nom

Day 12 of 30

What a roller coaster of a day! We started out the day still holding out on eating. She didn't even want to take one sip of the Pediasure. It's what she throws up, so I'm sure that she associates it with the drink. And they've been making her take 3 sips, back to back, from a medicine cup. That's a lot for a kid! Then at lunch the feeding therapist started to give her food first to see if food is the problem. She ate the bites like a champ but held out with the milk again. It was definitely the milk.

Panic was definitely starting to rise up in my throat by now. It got to the point where I couldn't watch anymore. I wanted to give her water instead but our feeding team didn't want to regress since she drank it before all the standoffs. However, I felt like we were wasting sessions. Each session of therapy/eating is so important because it could potentially help your child that much more. Also each session is expensive. Our old therapy sessions at Texas Children's each cost something like $200. That was just our portion. You are paying for their expertise, so you want to wring every bit of benefit from it.

By snack time, the staff was fully concerned. We switched to feeding milk by spoon and the psychologist sat in the room to watch. Outside in the observation room, the speech therapist, another feeding tech and I all watched her eat. They were concerned that she would not only refuse the milk, but all spoonfuls because one of them contained milk. We all held our breath as she was offered milk. She took one bite from the spoon. And then another, and another. Whew! I think I finally breathed in deeply then. The speech therapist rushed off to put in new orders and change the menus. She ate the rest of the meal, but still gagged a bit on the milk. It led to her throwing up some, but the psychologist noted that she ate her bites of food right after it. Seems like any little gag triggers the throwing up and she can't stop it. But at least we don't have a behavioral bulimic on our hands.

I feel so relieved. And now I can feel drained. It was the hardest day in the program so far and I hope there's none worse while we're here.

Denver and Sophie are getting in tonight, along with Patricia and Jeff. We have been waiting all week for them, especially after the last two days. I can't wait for the calvary to arrive.

Food Log:
3/1
Session 1: 0g
Session 2: 5g
Session 3: 42g
Session 4: 46g

Liquids Log:
3/1
Session 1: 0g
Session 2: 0g
Session 3: 9g
Session 4: 8g