Thursday, May 28, 2009

Making New Habits

We all know it's not easy to make new habits and very hard to break old ones. Which is the struggle I am facing now.

Soren is now on an anti-viral medicine. It is a medicine that is to be given three times a day. I give Soren all his meds in the am and pm. And I don't want to bother his school with the middle dose if it ends up not being permanent.

So I'm doing it. Or I'm trying. But this is very much not in my routine, so I'm struggling.

There are various components to my struggle.

1.) The lunch meds...I do well on the weekends, when I feed him lunch. But then when he's back at school, I forget to give him his afternoon dose when he gets home from school. Ugh.

2.) I'm also supposed to be giving him a multi-vitamin, something I've been incredibly lax about doing. I think I gave it to him one day and then have forgotten since.

3.) Soren is currently on 5 meds (3 anti-seizure, 1 antibiotic, 1 anti-viral) In the morning, I used to just plop the pills in his mouth, give him his bottle, and have him swallow them down. Now there are so many, he's choking! And it's not a big breakfast kinda guy.

4.) Due to the diet changes, I need to make sure that Soren is getting in enough calories, so I need to add more food.

So this is the habit I'm trying to form.

1.) Feed Soren a little breakfast (emphasis on little) just to get the pills down. Some banana and Rice Krispies, maybe some Cream of Wheat (if it's allowed). Just something that will do better and no choking.

2.) Feed Soren a little snack after school. Usually he gets off the bus and I just let him chill in his vision box until dinner. But today, having forgotten his lunch meds at Feeding Therapy, I fed him a snack. Now, mind you, he had CHOWED DOWN at Feeding Therapy.

Well, clearly the boy was hungry, because he then wolfed down the snack, pills and all.

Wish me luck. I am a creature of mainly bad habits but I'm hoping these good ones will stick.

Amy

Monday, May 18, 2009

Okay, I'm Back!

Sorry I have fallen off posting yet again! Life has been crazy-busy work work (yay!) and illness (boo!). Soren had a stomach bug right after Spring Break, then a week later he had a fever, then that Friday, his fever returned and wouldn't break. Finally I got him into the doctor and discovered that it was an ear infection. Got Soren on the mend, and then Mo got a cold!

The good news through all of that for Soren is that he had very few seizures---something that is very rare in that situation. We are now seeing a neuro-immunologist who has recommended I take Soren off dairy and put him on anti-virals. I did the dairy first and the lack of seizures continues (last one we saw was Mother's Day). I started the anti-virals today, so we'll see if there is any change.

Next I need to remove avocado, which is going to be hard. 1.) Because Soren loves it and 2.) Because I have very little cooking imagination. But we have a great cookbook on delicious and healthy foods for babies. I will delve into it and see if I can widen Soren's repertoire.

I promise to keep you updated on any changes!

Amy