Strep Throat and a new therapist

I have been wanting to post for a couple days, but I have been a little under the weather (to put it mildly LOL). I am trying to get over strep throat and it is not pretty. I started to not feel well wednesday, but blamed it on allergies/sinus issues. By thursday night I had chills, fever, sore throat, ect. By Friday morning I could not eat, talk or even drink water. I went to the Doctor and got some antibiotics. I have no idea where I caught it since I don't know a single person with it. But oh well... at least it is just me and not the kids. I have had strep so many times I can't even begin to tell you when I was younger... hence the reason for my tonsils and adenoids being take out at 12. It wasn't too bad when I was younger, just a sore throat usually and maybe a slight fever. What I have been going through in the last 3 days is worse than childbirth! I have not been this sick and knocked down flat in years. My Dr told me the older you get, the worst strep is and the longer it takes to get rid of. Boy can I tell you that is true. So even though I wanted to get a post done about Josh's new therapy, I was not in any shape to even sit at the computer. Thank goodness I am on the mend. I hope that NOBODY ever gets this. I have been so overly cautious about germ control... I never want to pass this along.

Now onto what I really wanted to post about. We went to meet Josh's new Therapist with Primary Children's Medical Center Rehab Facility. Her name is Tera. I will just refer to her as the PCMC therapist since he has another OT as well.

She was wonderful and gave some good insight into what is going on with Josh, things to try with him and some new concerns we didn't really know about. I have always said that it is usually two steps forward then one step back with Josh. This is no different. This first initial visit was for her to see how he is doing, what his limitations are and what he is able to do with food and liquid. She obviously said the same thing we already knew... he needs to stay on pureed foods for now and some meltable snacks (Like Gerber Puffs). Since we are in a weight gain problem as well, now is not the time to start hitting him with a bunch of new things. Our goal for now is to get him back up to eating a variety of foods and increase his intake so we can decrease the formula. In case I haven't told you, he is no longer allergic to milk so we have all sorts of new/old things for him. He can have regular pudding, milk, yogurt, ice cream ect. All great ways to add calories. So that is our plan. Then she wanted to see where he is at with his drinking. She saw that his results from his swallow test came back normal and that is when we moved him back to regular thin liquids. I have never just let him have full control when drinking them, since he still has a hard time. So she put it in a cup with a straw and we let him do it all. He took one sip and was OK.. just minimal coughing. But then he got brave and took like 3 sips. He got a very panicked look on his face and started to turn red.. then swallowed finally and started gasping for air. The OT was a little alarmed (and me as well). She then held the drink so she could control how much he was getting and watched him very carefully. She told me that she is very concerned he has a breathing problem while eating and drinking. He has not figured out the coordination between drinking, swallowing, breathing. When he was on thickened liquids, he did much better because he could control it a little better. So she started asking me all sorts of questions about other things and told me there is something going on.... he wakes up a lot at night, he always has his mouth open and that can indicate he only breaths through his mouth. So she gave me specific things to do with him this week and then she will decide if it is just a delay in his development, or if there could be a problem. Most common is larger than normal tonsils or adenoids. So we'll have to see where this goes. For now we are going to give him normal liquids at mealtimes with us controlling how much he gets, and we are going back to thickened liquids for him in his sippy cup. He has stopped drinking well since we went to all normal fluids and the OT thinks it is because he has learned that he can't manage it well.

So... in a nutshell the therapy went well, I learned alot of things to do with him to work with the sensory part of it, found out there is an additional problem going on, and got a good mealplan to work with. The one thing I was not expecting was to have her want to see him weekly. I am still a little overwhelmed on how to make this all work out. But as usual it will all work out. It always does.

So that is what is going on with Josh. It's another day here in Paradise. Thanks for all the love, concern, and prayers we get for our family. We love all of you and are so grateful to have such a wonderful support system!! You are the best!