Friday, January 16, 2009

Happy Birthday To Me!

6:00pm
First, thank you for all the birthday wishes! Kenzie is feeling all better. Shes not snotty or anything anymore. Jordan is busy trying to convince the doctors here to get her off isolation as soon as possible. It's pretty boring stuck in this room!

The big news of the day is that Kenzie ate! Well sort of... They started this morning dipping her nuk brush in stage 1 puree carrots. She had a few gags and one vomit BUT she opened her mouth for every "bite", and voluntarily swallowed each time! She even swallowed within their 30 second time period. What really shocks me is that not only is she taking the carrots but shes closing her mouth and you can actually see her taste it. For months we have given her food and she takes her tongue and moves it all the way to the back of her mouth so it doesn't ever touch the food (almost like when you're at the dentist and you don't want to taste the stuff they're using in your mouth). She usually exerts such effort to get her tongue away from the food.

8:13pm
Well, guess what?!? Jordan convinced them to let us go out! Kenzies still technically on isolation IN the hospital but shes allowed out for her TLOA since she looks so healthy! So we literally ran out the door in the middle of me doing this post to go to dinner. We went to Roys Hawaiian Fusion. It was delicious :-) So for the next few days we literally have the best of both worlds. Kenzie still has her own private spacious room. All therapies will be done in here and when we go out she must wear a mask. Shes not allowed out of her room in the hospital but we can take her out! Its terrific!!!!

Back to her feeding... so not only did kenzie swallow but the behavioral psychologist said to us that Kenzie "surprised me. I did not expect this kind of results from her so quickly" If she continues in this route the next thing they will do is up her "bite number" in each session. Right now shes at 10 so maybe they'll go to 15 or 20. They are keeping her on the Nuk to help desensitize her mouth. Eventually they will move to a spoon but the Nuk helps illicit a swallow since Kenzie really isn't coordinated enough to do it on her own yet. What they really want out of her now is to hopefully get her more comfortable. She still screams and cries a lot in her sessions and we are hoping to have that go by the wayside.

So... all around it wound up being not such a bad birthday. Two years in a row now we have been in the hospital on my birthday so I am hoping this does not become a trend! I'm sure we all know what my wish is...

1 comment:

Isabella Griggs said...

Wow! What a great birthday present for Kenzie to give you mom! Eating real food and swallowing it too! I don't know if it's magic they're serving up over there at KKI or what but I know that Bella also quickly made some amazing advances once she became comfortable with the staff and learned the protocol. Kenzie we're so proud of you - Keep up the good work and say HI to our friends at KKI! Did you meet Miss Sherry yet?