All I want is for my child to eat!

Well, it is official, Tricare has denied authorization to KKI under a "medical admission" They will authorize it under a "behavioral admission" but not "medical." It is ridiculous, stupid, petty, and just a battle of words while here I sit with a child that cannot eat and has to get his nutrition through a tube! I plan on appealing this if just for the sake of other parent's down the road. Call it rooted in what you may, medical or behavioral, a feeding disorder is a feeding disorder, who cares how they got that way!

So, I am appealing the denial, going to switch over to Trisouth on Monday and begin to pursue therapies here in Atlanta as well as investigate other feeding programs that have a "behavioral" model as that seems to be the only kind Tricare will pay for. Mainly I am so disappointed because I have spent the last year and a half working on making this happen, we flew out to Baltimore for an evaluation, and I have spent countless hours on the phone with these people and it has now come down to a matter of words, speechless!

Carsten's eating has been pretty steady. He is still eating gerber cheese puffs and his purees. He drinks maybe 4-8 ounces of water a day now which is GREAT but he doesn't seem to want to drink milk or juice and that's the only way he's going to get off the tube. I tried to feed him peas yesterday that weren't completely pureed, kind of chunky, and it was a disaster. So, hopefully we can find a good feeding therapist here and get started even if it's only once or twice a week. He did make a lot of progress last year from his feeding therapy. I belive he will get off this tube, I just need to continue to be patient and put my "hope" in the Lord and not doctors or feeding programs or even in Carsten's eating itself.

So that's the conclusion of my week, I really hope the weekend starts getting better. Maybe we'll go to the pool when he wakes up just to do something fun and get our minds off of it:) Carsten is really starting to point at things!! Today at the grocery store he was pointing at something in the check out line to tell me he wanted it, this is HUGE!!!! I've been waiting SOOOO long for him just to tell me he wants, likes, dislikes ANYTHING and he's starting to do it! He's such a sweet little boy I love him so much.

Have a great weekend,
Momma Bridges