Physical Therapy and the Gastrointestinal Doc

Busy, busy, busy! We've been kept very busy with appointments yesterday! First up was PT. Since we have been released to every other week appointments, we didn't miss any time being away on our trip.    We've seen good progress over the past two weeks with Braeden's taking steps and overall strength.  He's getting much better at controlling his walking, at least for a few steps.  He has figured out how to lower himself to the ground, rather than falling backwards stiff as a board!  This is helpful in that he's not hitting his head as much, but it also means that when he doesn't want to walk, he just squats.  We're also working on his confidence.  He didn't want Sarah (pt) to let go of him, and when she did, he would squat down.  Nowadays, all he wants to do in pt is go towards the door/hallway and flirt with the other therapists!  Our homework is to continue to do activities to strengthen the right side of the body and practice standing on uneven surfaces (like the couch, bed, pillows), to continue strengthening his core muscles.


We also had the dreaded G.I. appointment today.  I have been looking forward to this and dreading it at the same time. We saw GI over a year ago, and we saw the same bow-tie wearing doc as before.  We discussed Braeden's eating habits, etc, and decided to begin an appetite stimulant.  There are many factors playing into Braeden's lack of weight gain and lack of interest in eating and drinking, so hopefully this will be a simple solution.  We are going to try it for one week and see how it goes.  Currently, we give him 1/2 a tsp in the morning and 1/2 a tsp in the evening.  This could make him tired (crossing my fingers I might get some really good naps out of this!), and we can then try just giving him one dose at nighttime.  This medicine was originally used for allergies, but parents started noticing that their kids were eating them out of house and home, so it was no longer used as an antihistamine, but an appetite stimulant.  If we don't notice much change in his appetite in a week, we have the option of upping the dosage.  IF this does not work, there is another appetite stimulant we can try.  Of course, there is also the concern about B not drinking from a cup and the doc insisted that I could not go to Kindergarten with him just so that I could breastfeed him (haha, excuse me teacher, I need to see Braeden, can you imagine me doing that!). The very last resort would be a G tube (feeding tube).  Of course, I am hoping it does not come to this.  So here's to Braeden eating us out of house and home, and drinking from a cup! Cheers!