Weighty Matters

Alas, my daughter's eating has still been sporadic over the last couple of months. Goal number one for her upcoming second birthday was for her to weigh 20 pounds or more. Unfortunately, she's still only at about 17.5 pounds. Despite having some very good eating days, she's topped out at that weight and not budged in the last six months.

This has been a concern to me, my wife and my daughter's medical providers. Recently, my wife tracked all the things my daughter ate for about three days. Her occupational therapist then did some analysis and came up with a calorie count. Turns out that even on a good eating day, my daughter is not getting near enough calories to continue growing and have the energy to do the things she wants. This is why she tires so quickly when she does her exercises and why she still needs so much sleep on a daily basis.

So now that the holidays are over, we’ll be bringing on some new members for my daughter’s medical team. They’ll be looking at her digestive system and seeing if anything is critically wrong there. If everything looks normal we’ll be looking into some new ways to improve my daughter’s nutrition. This includes the possibility of a feeding tube being implanted in her stomach. This is something my wife and I have been dreading for many, many months. However, as I consider the possible benefits of having a feeding tube, perhaps it’s not a bad option. It’d be great to give my daughter more energy and the ability to finally put on some weight. As we visit with the doctors, we’ll see what they say.

For now my house is full of all kinds of high fat, high calorie foods to help my daughter get as much nourishment as she’ll take in. It’s good for her, not so much for her Mom and me. We tend to snack and that’s been detrimental to our waistline. Oh well, that’s what New Year’s resolutions are for.