Feeding Clinic Visit

Charlotte and I made the trek to CHOW for a 9:45 a.m. appointment. I won't bore you with the driving details. Suffice it say, I left the house at 7:10 a.m. and pulled into CHOW's parking lot at 9:35 a.m. It's a 90 mile trip. The first hour was spent driving the 15 miles between my home and Wilmette IL. Charlotte asked me to let her out of the car, which she never does. We stopped at an oasis and "did laps" around the car!

The clinic visit went well. We met with Dr. Beth Long (the behavioral psychologist) and Amy Delaney. They had me observe while they fed her. Feeding is not Charlotte's favorite thing, so it was especially difficult for me to not be allowed to comfort her when she got upset. Amy and Dr. Beth fed Charlotte hospital food (oh joy!)--special purees of pizza and green beans, ice cream and potato chips.

We've all agreed that Charlotte has some oral-motor ability problems. She has problems fully opening her mouth on command to place food on her back molars. She also has problems elevating her tongue to touch her upper lip (to lick food off the lip) and moving her tongue from side to side (to move food onto her molars).

This explains, of course, why she sometimes "hoards" food without chewing--she is not able to move the food onto her molars. Sometimes a small swig of milk lets the food move; sometimes it causes her to spit it all out.

The CHOW team is going to work with Laura, our local feeding therapist extraordinaire, on strategies to improve Charlotte's oral-motor skills. We even have "chew toys" to give her more oral input. I'm having a hard time figuring out when to use them and how exactly, but when the folks at CHOW use them, we see marked improvement

The ride home was pretty quick, save for getting rearended by a Penske rental truck at a highway exit. If you've known me a while, you probably know that I'm a magnet for people who like to rearend other cars. As a result, I have a herniated cervical disk or two. Fortunately, I have a great chiropractor and wonderful yoga instructors, so this accident wasn't too bad.

We treated ourselves with a trip to the Chicago Botanic Garden with Miff and Susan on the way home. Charlotte gave the three of us a guided tour of the kitchen gardens.

Next trip to CHOW: Thursday, June 21.