It's a Feeding Miracle!

This is pretty detailed so I certainly don't expect everyone to read it, but I'm just kind of using this as a diary entry because it was an amazing week and if you want to read it AND COMMENT, feel free. : )

I can't believe that it was only one week ago today that we started Logan's Feeding Clinic training in our home. I thought I'd include a photo and some video clips so you can see the difference between last Saturday, when we started and Friday when we ended. There had to be one parent who was the main trainer so I decided to do that (since I'd also like to use these techniques to get Mike to eat green foods). This was good, however it was very tiring work all week, tutor a homebound student 2.5 hours, attend a faculty meeting, and give Logan every single bite (other than the three modeling bites that Laura gave him). Basically, either Laura was at our house when I got home from work, or she arrived within about five minutes. Mike took care other things around the house, which was great. Eric was an amazing cheerleader for his brother and would say "Yeah, Logan" after he would take a bite and sometimes give him a hug. Very supportive!

Saturday: Time: 5 hours - Logan fought us tooth and nail for the entire session that day. My body ached that night and on Sunday from having to hold his body up, hold his hands down, squeeze his legs together with mine so that he couldn't hit, bit, or kick. The amazing thing was that he didn't throw up even one time during any of the main training this week. The only time he ever puked was on the very first day that Laura came to do the baseline data. I was completely expecting him to throw up A LOT, so we were prepared with towels! The longest we had to wait for Logan to take a bite on Saturday was 37 minutes. That was the first bite that Laura modeled for us and when he opened his mouth to whine, she just popped it in there.

Sunday: Time: 5 hours: We went to early church (way too early) and then started training again at 10 a.m. and it ran until about 3 p.m. Up until about 12:30 p.m., Logan pulled out all the stops again but then I guess he decided he was hungry and just decided to open his mouth and take the bite. It felt like a miracle, because I had just told Laura that my only goal for that day was that Logan take one bite willingly. The rest of the day he would take a bite within 30 seconds and then get a break of 3 minutes. He figured out that it is a lot more fun to get a lot of breaks rather than fighting us all the time.

Monday through Friday: Time approx. 10 hours of additional work. Laura is a Doctoral student working with behavior so this study, in our home, was for her dissertation. We had to get in a total of 120 bites, plus "Probe Meals" every 10 bites. I didn't mind the taste sessions for the 120 bites, but I really didn't enjoy the Probe Meals which were 10 minutes - regardless of whether Logan took zero bites or many bites. I guess that means we did 12 probe meals for a total of 2 hours this week. ICK! The success with the probe meals varied, but he didn't enjoy the length of time we had to sit there and neither did I. I told Laura that there was no way I'd do 10 minute sessions again after the study. I think 5 minutes would be fine and not make Logan or I crazy. The purpose of the probe meals is to see if he will take bites when he's not required to and these include foods that he hasn't been previously exposed to in the taste sessions.

Sometimes Logan would make nasty faces as he took the bites, but when asked, he usually said that the food was "Yummy" or "Delicious" or "Good." The trend seems to be that he really likes protein such as Deli Chicken, Turkey (not Ham - and I agree with him on that), Fish Sticks, Steak, Tuna (with no mayo - just plain) and Fruit. He liked all kinds of fruit but especially liked pears. It was really interesting to see how he actually had food preferences for Pears, which Mike and Eric love and tuna and fish, which I love.

Last night for dinner, Logan ate fish sticks, tuna, cherry tomatoes, pineapple, potato chips, and then as a back-up to take some bites he had his favorite "green chips" which Mommy, Eric, and Logan all love. They are the Tostitoes Lime chips. YUM! I didn't even have to give him a whole chip and just gave him part of one for most bites.

One thing that we learned during this study, is that Logan didn't know how to use a fork. I had never given it any thought, but he'd never had a need to use one because of his limited diet. Everything he eats, is either with a spoon (oatmeal, soy yogurt) or his fingers (chips and beans, soy cheese, clam strips) or he drinks it out of a cup. He needs a bit of help stabbing the food and still a little help getting the food into his mouth, but he is doing very well.

We were given a follow-up plan with specific ways to get him different foods so that he will keep up his huge progress. Laura, the food goddess, told us that Logan was a Super Star and I would definitely agree.

We finished the 120 bites just before the snow came down. As Laura was arriving on Friday afternoon, the snow started falling and as I sit here on Saturday morning at 4 a.m. looking out at the blizzard we are having, I'm so thankful that we just squeezed in the last of the bites. Laura really just feel in love with Eric and one day she bought Eric "Diego corn." Eric actually ate it, since Diego was on the label. I can't ever get him to eat corn which just never makes sense to me, but he ate it when Diego was on the label. On our last main day, she bought the boys a puzzle (for Logan), a Diego coloring book (for Eric), a kid's briefcase full of little hide and seek books, and a Dora & Diego party planner book with all kinds of animal stickers, posters, etc. Eric just loved her too, which was very sweet. Logan wasn't such a fan, even up until the last day when he was still trying to take a swing at her or kick her.

Please pray for us as we work to keep up with Logan eating healthy foods and keeping a variety of foods in his diet. It really is a miracle that all of this change happened in just one week of hard work.

Angie
I took this photo because for the first time ever, I made the exact same lunch for Logan and Eric and knew that they would both eat everything on it. I actually got teary eyed.

Another amazing part of the day, I actually made the same dinner for everyone and everyone ate it. That is also a first and the true reason that I wanted to change things with Logan's eating habits. He still won't be able to eat some things because of not being able to eat dairy, eggs, or peanuts, but there are so many more options open to us. Tonight, we ate BBQ sausage, peas, grapes, and home made bread. It wasn't anything fancy, but we all ate it. Very cool!

WARNING: THE VIDEO BELOW IS LOGAN'S FIRST SESSION WHERE HE PUKED FROM JUST BEING PRESENTED WITH A PIECE OF A BANANA. This was just the beginning of January and was a session to get baseline data. The second video is a good bite of food on the second day of training. Amazing!