Chewing and Cold Milk

This morning when I fed Ian breakfast at the RMH I gave him yogurt, cranberry sauce, and warm Elecare. It turns out that was his last time drinking warm "milk" as Kathy served it to him cold (as in from the refrigerator) the rest of the day. She told me this at his 4:30pm feeding so I served it to him cold at 6pm at RMH. I can't believe he showed NO objection to cold milk today because normally he won't drink it if it's not hot enough (i.e. someone heats it for say 25 seconds and he prefers it heated at least 30 seconds in the microwave). It's nice to know he can drink it cold. That will make life oh so much easier when we're out and about. He also has improved a lot with his drinking skills the last few days. He's drinking out of a plastic cup which is a shot glass (to give you the idea of the size). He switched to that size on Thursday after drinking from a medicine cup for three days.

The exciting thing for me though was that Kathy started working on trying to teach him to chew. I heard her talking with Dr. Williams, and she was telling him she was going to work on textures this week, but I heard him tell her to work on chewing instead. That made my day!!! He didn't eat as much food today because she was so focused on teaching him to chew, but he did have some pureed beef stew as well as yogurt. She gave him pretzels, Ritz crackers, and Bugles (the chip) to work on chewing. She also was trying to get him to swallow some of the pieces that would dissolve in his mouth (such as from the Ritz crackers). She thinks part of the reason he has chewing is #1 because of how few teeth he has and #2 because of the way his teeth/jaws are aligned. That doesn't shock me considering the issues my brother and I had. I am sure Ian will be wearing braces some day. I told her I didn't think it was impossible for him to chew, and that I wanted us to keep pressing forward with teaching him to chew. She was fine with that. I agree it might be more difficult, but I don't think he's incapable of learning to chew. My attitude toward the feeding program improved drastically once I realized they are starting to work on chewing today. I am hoping and praying that within the next 3 weeks he'll make huge strides with chewing. If he leaves this place chewing and swallowing table food, I will definitely think it was worth all the hassle.

The kids are really missing Dylan. It was harder to entertain them today as Leah (who is 3 months older than Ian) is completely non-verbal, and she didn't really want to play with Nadia or Ian.

I found out today that Mike's funeral isn't taking place until Saturday. I thought I was going to have to miss this one as well due to being in Hershey. I am glad I will be able to attend.

Today I spent some time trying to straighten out insurance bills. First, the hospital billed another company (other than the one I gave them the card for) to pay for my bloodwork. I didn't even recognize the name of the company, but it turns out it's through my employer and covers only mental health (counseling, etc.). How they got that information, I have NO idea. I told them they need to submit it to the health insurance company as what I gave them when I had my appointment. They lose my vials of blood and then bill the wrong company. Lovely. Last month our insurance said they weren't paying anything because they first wanted to see the EOB's from our other insurance. I told them we didn't have any other insurance. I mailed them a confirmation from Blue Shield, which showed our coverage ended on January 13. I called today and asked if they had received that documentation which I mailed 3 weeks ago. They said yes. I asked why are they still not paying a dime on any claim (they just turned down two more claims last week). She said she would have all of them reviewed again. I'll feel a sense of relief when I see them start paying these claims (some are from as far back as January 16). I hope I didn't make the wrong choice in going with this insurance until the end of June.