Today was a historic day. Ian actually used his jaws to chew, and then he actually (with encouragement) swallowed some little tiny crumbs of food (mostly Ritz crackers but also some Bugle chips and a couple of morsels of a pretzel). I was ELATED! I can't tell you what a thrill it was to see those jaws moving. Yesterday when she first introduced chewing she allowed him to eject all the pieces (not swallow anything), and then part way through the day she started working on getting him to swallow a little. This morning the first two meals he cried and cried over the chewing exercises, but then at the third meal he had a HUGE breakthrough and he started chewing and swallowing! He needed a lot of encouragement with the chewing (as in she kept pushing the morsels back in his mouth whenever he ejected them), and this brought on tears, but he would eventually swallow. As the day progressed he fought her less and chewed and swallowed more and didn't need as much help with pieces being put back in his mouth. I was THRILLED. I don't know if this can adequately express how pleased I was. To think yesterday she was contemplating giving up on teaching him to chew because of his underbite, and today he was chewing!!! She has been doing this a long time (just became a grandmother last month), and she told me today that she was shocked. She said she has taught many, many kids to chew, and none have learned as quickly as Ian. Later in the day he said he wanted to eat fruit snacks. Umm I don't think he's ready for that yet, lol, but the doctor said maybe in a couple of weeks. If Ian is eating fruit snacks in two weeks I will be ELATED. I am curious to see what the next baby step of progress will be that they'll work on tomorrow. I called Daddy, Grandma, and his OT to tell them the good news while we were still at the feeding clinic.
Kathy let us out at 4:30 because she knew I was teaching my class tonight. My friend, Joyce, who lives about 15-20 minutes from Hershey (we worked together from 1996-2000) came to the RMH with her daughter, Kristin (age 9), and babysat Ian and Nadia for 2 hours while I taught. Thankfully everything went smoothly. She took the kids out to the playground and also took them to the craft room where they were coloring (Ian) and painting (Nadia) when I came to get them. I am very grateful for modern technology that made it possible for me to teach from the RMH, and I'm very grateful that Joyce was willing to watch my kids. She'll be coming back to do the same thing on the 26th.
Paul received the paperwork in the mail from the OB about what bloodwork he needs to have done. He'll be checking at PSU tomorrow about getting that done this week.
No comments:
Post a Comment