Week 3

Another week is under our belts! And what a GREAT week it has been:) Each week gets better and better, I hope this trend continues to keep up!

I had to work Monday, so Ryan was with Evan. I got a text after his first feeding from Ryan saying they reintroduced the squeeze bottle and he did AWESOME with it. They also increased his feeding time from 12 min to 15 min to give him more time to eat. He handled all the changes wonderfully. I was back with him on Tuesday and they continued to work with the squeeze bottle. He was pretty uncoordinated with it the day before so they wanted to work more on shaping his drinking with it. He took a total of 4 ounces of both drink and food so I was able to decrease his tube feedings by 4 OUNCES!!! I was now tube feeding less than what he was taking by mouth. What a great feeling! He also is becoming very used to the routine of the therapy. He takes a bite or a drink and he gets rewarded every time with either getting to play with a tractor (John Deere of course), blowing bubbles, playing with a drum, etc. every single bite or drink. He goes wild during the playing time (which only lasts about 10-15 sec) and than calms down immediately when they take the play thing away and say "Evan take a bite/drink".

Wednesday made me a little nervous. He has two therapists he works with. Mr. Scott is on vacation this week and Miss Amanda was doing intake exams. So Evan had a new therapist he has never met. I was certain he wasn't going to do good for her because he was used to the other two. But he proved me wrong!!! He again did amazing and each feeding I was able to decrease his tube feed by 3 1/2-4 ounces every time. They also added food this day:) He's only been getting his thickened Pediasure on the spoon and the squeeze bottle, but today they added applesauce. His first bite was hilarious. He gave the therapist quite the look like "hey what the heck was that". But by the end of the day, he was a pro and was taking huge bites. She was scrapping the bowel by the end of the feeding session. The funniest thing he started doing today was opening his mouth as soon as the play thing was taken away without being prompted by them saying "Evan take a bite/drink". Thursday Miss Amanda was back which made Evan happy. He did the best he's ever done with the squeeze bottle by keeping all of the drink in his mouth! He is taking huge drinks, they want at least a 5gm drink and he was consistently taking 5-7 gm:) They also added sweet potatoes in. So no he was just getting apple sauce and sweet potatoes, no pediasure on the spoon just in the squeeze bottle. He did great with it! Again made a face the first bite but quickly adapted to the new food.

Friday was the BEST day yet!!!!! They added another food to his meal, fruit cocktail. So he's back to eating 3 different foods with meals. The goal is a fruit, vegetable, and an entree. He's never done very well with the entree part of the meal so they decided to not start that on a Friday. They will probably start that on Monday or Tuesday. He ate like a champ. Amanda commented that he acts like he's been eating forever:) But the best part was.............HE ATE AND DRANK EVERYTHING FOR ALL 3 MEALS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I didn't have to tube feed him ANYTHING except for his meds and his extra water:) WAHOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!! I can't believe he's gotten this far in just 12 days of therapy!!! He is definitely a rock star!!!

I've also noticed he's talking a lot more! His therapists are all speech pathologists, and being SP's they can't help themselves by working on his speech during the meals:) They prompt him to say 'go' to make the tractor drive, 'more' for playing with things, 'dd' for what animal he wants to sing about (our dog), when they ask him which direction he wants the bubbles blown he says 'down'. He is really talking up a storm since starting therapy! We are getting two therapies for the price of one!

So this weekend we have NOTHING to do:) I don't have to work and can just spend time with both kids and Ryan....and I'm going to take full advantage of it! I hope you all have a great weekend, and I look forward to telling you what our miracle man does next week!!!

Lindsey