November 2013 rehab & rheumatology

Update of the day:

Feeding rehab #1 no gagging or puke (Holla!) and he did great, he touched a grape, had 2 bites of broccoli and about 2 oz of yogurt! Excellent morning! He is still trying to hard to eat and gets tired easily with all of that chewing. He still has to work on drinking through a straw cup for all liquids except formula because he is not drinking correctly. He worked on his core strength with the swing again, he doesn't like it at all and gets really nervous. He also worked with a large bouncing ball rolling it back and forth. 

Rheumatology: his circulatory system looks great and has zero damage from raynauds. dr. Johnson said that Pacens raynauds is by itself and not accompanied by any other auto immune disorder. Great appointment! I was excited to hear that we only have to see Dr. Johnson every six months, although he is a really interesting and helpful person to talk to. He wants Pacen seen by another neurologist at UNM for another opinion because he didn't agree with Dr. Atkinson either. He said she was 'getting up there in age, and sometimes people don't know when to retire' ... Oddly I agree haha. Dr. J said we could call Dr. Noel (GI) and track him down to what hospital he is working at in San Antonio and see him there since he already knows Pacen. Phew, that would be a long drive. 

Feeding rehab #2: we had some gagging and near puking with broccoli, but he was able to just gag and be done. He touched a grape to his mouth and gagged once and then finally ate it and decided it wasn't to bad after all. He had 3 grapes total, and 2 pieces of broccoli. He also tried tuna. Successful day. We are trying a concept called 'the spit cup' which gives Pace and easy out for when he gets way too much food in his cheek and needs to spit some out to keep chewing. He needs to pace himself very slowly so he doesn't get caught up in pocketing food into his cheeks, which leads to choking. 

Feeding rehab #3: today was an OK day. ST & OT together, they want to bump Pacen up one more sessions a month, so he will have 4 total. Today we played with bubbles for a few minutes and worked on his core strength with a suspended swing. He doesn't like the sensation of being on the swing. OT says Pacen has very slow motor planning skills. He just works so much harder than normal kids to get the spoon from the plate, balancing food, to his mouth and getting the food off the spoon and stay in his mouth.