The Torture Begins

On Tuesday morning we will be taking our sleeping boy and putting him in the car at 6:30 in the morning to driving to Richmond to see our AV therapist. What kind of crazy therapist makes you get up that early for a session, you ask? She's not crazy, she's wonderful. You see, Noah and I are booked solid for the next 8 weeks from 9-4:30, so 7:30 am is the only time I have available for learning to listen and speak. Why, you ask? We will soon be day patients at Children's Hospital. Our goal? Learning to eat. As a fun way to start that goal, on Tuesday morning our new feeding therapist will lock Noah and I in a room with all sorts of foods that I know he won't be interested in. She said she doesn't expect him to eat them, she just wants to find out how he goes about not eating them. Does he gag? Vomit? Push the food away? Scream and cry? Yes, to all. Why would I put my small child under such diress? Because if I don't we're getting a g-tube. We don't want a g-tube, so instead we're going to feeding boot camp. Every day Noah will have 4 feeding sessions with our feeding therapist and a feeding technician (I'll let you know what this is next week). Twice a week he'll be weighed, and if he doesn't gain appropriately there'll be a public flogging (they're kidding about that, right?). Once a week we'll meet with our feeding team (therapists, nutritionist, psychologist, etc.), and after 8 weeks they'll let us loose in the world a little fatter (just Noah, not me) and with some new feeding skills. We hope.