Feeding Therapy

We had a great feeding therapy appointment yesterday in Kansas City. The dietician came in to talk about Carsten's diet and it was very productive. At first she acted a little concerned about him going to an intensive feeding clinic, finally I was getting upset and said, "why do you have a problem with that?" She explained that since he is on the GJ tube and Elecare (a VERY elemental broken down formula for your gut) she didn't know if his body could break down real food basically. I told her that he's eating all kinds of pureed food and sometimes I even give him sips of whole milk and he seems to do fine. I think that convinced her to try to switch him to a different formula. One that is broken down a little less than Elecare. Basically, in Elecare the amino acids are broken down for Carsten so his body doesn't have to do it. Now we are going to try Peptamin Jr. in which the amino acids are not broken down, but the next protein Peptides are broken down for him. I'm going to slowly transition over to the peptamin jr and see how it goes. I'm hopeful that he will tolerate it okay because 1) it will show us that his body can break it down and that he will have a better chance of breaking down real foods, and 2) it is a higher calorie so we can give him less ounces in a day and get off this night tube nightmare:)

She said we could do four feeds of 6 ounces a day with the peptamin. She also recommended giving him about 8 ounces of water a day through the tube when I told her his mouth was CHRONICALLY dry. One of my concerns about going back to day feedings into his stomach is that he ALWAYS threw up horribly the first feed in the day because of drainage. She said to try giving him some lukewarm water through the tube about 30 minutes before I feed him in the morning to get some of that gunk moving. Well I gave him some water this morning and so far, no gagging or puking! Also the peptamin is supposed to taste better than the Elecare so maybe he will try it more by mouth, we'll see.

So please pray a little prayer for Peptamin Jr that it would agree with Carsten's body:) I guess if he starts puking in the next week we'll know why and back to the good ole' night tuby:)

I just finished the book "In the Presence of My Enemies", wow! What a neat book. It's about this couple that were missionaries to the Philippines back before 9/11. You might remember them. They were abducted from a resort place on their anniversary by Philippino terrorists and the story is all about their capture and ransom. The wife makes it out but not the husband. They are actually from KC and the lady came to speak at our women's bible study a couple of weeks ago and I'm so sad I missed it but thankful my friend Coralee got the book for me. I read it in two nights, SO good! I love reading about missionaries! Anyway, I guess my point was that in the story the wife prayed about the tiniest little things, even that God would provide her a cheeseburger out there in the jungle, amazingly, he did! So, if she could pray for those things I know that I can pray for little things like Carsten tolerating this formula and He will hear my prayer. I think the most recent lessons the Lord is trying to teach me is persistence in prayer, it keeps coming up in my life as of late.

Matthew 21:22 "If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer."

Mark 11:24 "Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours."

Blessings,
Momma Bridges