More Doctor Appointments

Yesterday I called a Pediatric Allergist and made an appointment for Ian in light of the bloodwork the GI office did that showed he has allergies. He'll be seeing a doctor plus having the skin test done on March 24th. Their office is about 90 miles away, and they said his appointment will take 60-90 minutes so I'm going to drop Nadia off at my in-law's house en route to the doctor appointment. I'm hoping that maybe his congestion is due to allergies, and if that's the case then hopefully he won't get a runny nose quite so often, and that will help with his feeding and weight issues because his reflux gets out of control when he has a runny nose.  Frankly, we should have Nadia tested at some point also because she also seems to sneeze and have a runny nose All The Time. We go through a crazy amount of boxes of Kleenex in this house! Hers doesn't seem so pressing though because she doesn't have reflux. I have a lot of allergies and was on allergy shots for many years as a child. I'm guessing I passed those on to my munchkins.

Ian fell asleep at dinner while holding his sippy cup and a cheese curl!

Ian's OT has been pushing for him to go to the feeding team in Hershey. She thinks it's much better than the one we took him to in January. I had hesitated in the past because #1 I didn't find the first feeding team appointment to be very helpful, #2 our current insurance doesn't work with the Hershey hospital, #3 I really don't want to start making regular trips to Hershey as it's not very close by, and #4 I thought having an OT come once a week to our house for an hour would be enough. Yesterday she offered to see if another family who is participating in the Hershey program would let us come and watch the program in action at their house with one of their twins (who has a feeding tube because the reflux is so bad). I feel like I comprehend what you're supposed to do; so I don't think watching another child follow the program will help me.

Basically you are to set a timer and gradually increase the time of each feeding session. She suggested 7 minutes for Ian. You are to do at least 5 feeding sessions a day. The purpose of these is not primarily to meet their nutritional needs but rather teach them how to eat food by spoon. You never force a bite in. You hold the spoon near the child's mouth and ask him to take a bite. Once he takes a bite, you give a reward for 3-5 seconds (some toy or a DVD that is reserved only for feeding sessions). Then you just keep repeating that process until the timer goes off. The problem is (and she saw this first hand with Ian yesterday), he won't take the first bite unless he's distracted (which isn't what they want) or forced. So yesterday while she asked him to take a bite and showed him the See 'n Say (which was to be his reward), he screamed for more than 10 minutes until she gave up. She said in the initial 90 minute feeding team appointment at Hershey she's only had one child who never took that first bite.

I've called them 3 times over the past 2 days, and thus far we've just played phone tag. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to schedule an appointment. They did call me back once today and left a message saying they charge $75 per 15 minutes. That sounds like a lot, but the local hospital charged over $700 for a 45 minute appointment, so Hershey's fees are a lot lower. They said a typical first appointment lasts 90 minutes, which would be $450. We'd owe 20% plus whatever the difference might be between their charges and what our insurance deems "usual and customary." I'm hoping it won't be much more than $90, but at this point I'd pay just about anything to help Ian learn to eat. He did eat a little peaches and apples for me by spoon today, but that was by distracting him which is unacceptable according to this program. Right now it's the only way I can get him to eat. Paul questioned the cost, but in my mind getting him to eat is extremely important so I'll pay whatever we have to pay to get the help he needs. I'm hoping (in light of the cost plus how long the drive will be) that we don't have to go many times. Karen said sometimes it only takes one visit. She'll be going with us so that she can then provide support in implementing the program. I'm very discouraged considering I started trying to get him to eat solid foods almost 10 months ago. Hopefully we'll start seeing some progress in the near future.

P.S. I was just reading the health insurance booklet again, and they specifically say that Hershey Medical is in the network. AGH!! I guess we could have gone there for his GI appt after all and had his upper GI x-ray done there. Why did they give me the wrong information when I called the number on the back of the insurance card???? Well the good news is that I think this means it won't cost us a penny to see the feeding team. Whew....

I took some videos of Nadia singing a few songs this morning including: "The BIBLE," " Zacchaeus was a wee little man," and the "Alphabet song."