Daniel's Interesting Day

I've not put a lot about Daniel's recent medical struggles in the blog because I want to include things Daniel and Maria will want to remember. Today was definitely one that I want Daniel to remember. We started out at Occupational Therapy which he loves. Because of his ongoing issues with nausea and not eating, we had planned to work on eating issues today. He only goes to OT every two weeks and it has always been a productive time. Today was no exception. Daniel doesn't eat meat and they figured out why today - he does not have developed muscles in that area. He moves his mouth straight up and down without any grinding motion and needs to learn how to eat chewier things. Daniel will definitely laugh at their recommendation for learning to eat the good stuff (meat), he has to eat candy - Twizzlers and Tootsie Rolls. Those will help develop the muscles and he's supposed to try to add a few bites per meal of things that are more difficult for him to eat. Mom laughed because of Daniel's Sunday revelation that he needed to eat more candy.....guess he was right. Mom's a tad bit jealous because when I did speech as a youngster, I had to learn how to swallow. Rubber bands on my tongue for long stretches of time in silence and putting my tongue on "the spot" every time I saw a red sticker was WAY less fun than eating candy!

After OT it was back to school. And, as has been the case way too often these last couple of months, I got a call from Mrs. Jamie saying that Daniel was not feeling well. After a discussion with the pediatrician's office we headed off to the hospital for an ultrasound and an upper GI X-ray that we were supposed to do tomorrow. Daniel loves buttons and gadgets so tests like these have never been a challenge for Daniel. He doesn't seem scared at all. He took it to another whole level today though on the upper GI test. They added chocolate syrup to the barium you have to drink and had him watching things on the screen with the x-ray over him and his "chocolate milk" ready to drink through a big straw. He sucked it down immediately and asked if there was more! He was finished with that test in no time - not sure what it showed, but we're praying that Daniel can start keeping his food with him soon!