It’s Feeding Tube Awareness Week, and how fitting, because our brave girl will be getting her g-tube on Friday. What’s a g-tube? A g-tube or gastrostomy tube is a feeding tube placed in the abdomen to deliver nutrition directly to the stomach. There are lots of conditions that might cause someone to need a feeding tube either temporarily or permanently, including: cardiovascular, developmental, endocrin, genetic, GI, immune, neurological, metabolic, swallowing, respiratory, and structural. In the medical world a feeding tube is low on the list of scary interventions. Madison has been fed by an NG tube many times. We...
Let Her Eat Cake!
Madison ate CAKE! I repeat, CAKE! Today Madison surprised us all and rocked her first real attempt at eating table food! She has been so moody and temperamental lately from teething, I never know how her therapy sessions are going to go. This afternoon at speech she started off pretty cranky, but once she got a taste of that sweet Entenmann’s funfetti cake, her mood perked right up! Since Madison’s success with using the light aide in speech (read more on that here), we’ve attempted to move her lessons into the CVI room. This room is painted black and...
Happy Halloween!
So we have had a crazy busy two weeks my friends! It’s been nonstop with various therapies and doctor appointments. I used to be someone who was so organized and on time, and now I never know what time we have anything #momlife lol. So I thought I’d pop in and update everyone on all of the craziness! Early Intervention Last week Madison had her yearly re-evaluation for her Early Intervention services. A developmental specialist came to meet with Maddie and tested her on various motor and social skills. In true Maddie form she slept through the session, so...
Fat for Fuel: The Ketogenic Diet
This past Monday I attended a Ketogenic Diet Seminar at CHOP, which is required by the hospital in order to start the diet as a part of their program. The class was presented by the entire keto team including the director of the program (who we’re actually meeting with next week), nurses, dietitians, a social worker, chef, and even a mother of a child in the program. Why would we need to start the ketogenic diet for Madison? And what is this diet? While it’s becoming more mainstream and fad-like, it actually originated as a way to help those...
A Speech Epiphany
You guysssssss, I took Madison to a new facility for a speech evaluation yesterday and it was absolutely INCREDIBLE. Like one of the most helpful and positive appointments I’ve taken her to in a long time. If you read my post on relearning to eat, you know Madison had to work very hard post meningitis on getting her ability to suck back. We spent a lot of time in speech therapy, had a g tube, and eventually got her strong enough to eat orally again. We were discharged from speech early on because her therapist saw no issues with...