Day 7 - Doctor's Visit and Update

Today, we had our first appointment with Dr. M since Amelia has enrolled at Kartini Clinic.  She asked Amelia if Amelia had any questions, and asked Amelia some things.  Everything seemed to be good there.  Amelia said a little bit but not much.  Once Dr. M was done talking to Amelia, she sent her back upstairs with her group (Amelia is in FIRE group... like Dragon Fire...).

Then, she talked to us, about what questions we might have, what we could expect, those kinds of things.  What we learned from this:

• Amelia dropped weight SLIGHTLY (0.2 lbs)
• We will start feeding her 5 boxes of Boost Plus a night rather than 4, both because of the slight weight drop, and because her energy just drops off after about 4:00 PM.
• It is great that Amelia is saying things like "I wish I could eat sometimes...." or "I really wish I could have this," but for now, we still want to keep her on just the feeding tube.
• She can have clear liquids to drink (no more milk or drinkable yogurt, at least for the time being).

Dr. M thinks very highly of Amelia, thinks she is very bright, always gets a hug from her, and wants to get Amelia better and back home where she belongs.  We really like Dr. M (and I call her that because I don't want to mess up the spelling of her last name...  She is Persian and I am not good with spelling Persian names).  She is helping us find a new pediatrician, someone who has been "trained" by the Kartini Clinic, someone that will have a better understanding of dealing with children suffering from and recovering from eating disorders.

This was actually a bit of a big decisions for us, to switch pediatricians.  We hadn't really thought about it before, but during this whole time, we remembered a couple of things.  Last year, when Amelia was 5, her pediatrician was cautioning us to "be careful about giving her carbs, no fruit juices or other sugary drinks..." when Amelia has always been around 50% for height/weight ratio (meaning just about perfect).  She (the pediatrician) also leans very heavily on the BMI scale for determining fitness.  The big problem we have with that is that the BMI was developed by the National Census Bureau, basically to help estimate how much area a person took up, not any indicator of health.  That has been tacked on since, and when pressed, doctors will even admit it is poor at best for determining health....  Okay, rant over.  That all being said, we are looking for a new pediatrician for Amelia, and have a good recommendation from Dr. M.

Lastly, Amelia moves up to her final dose of the medication she is on (meaning final adjustment, she will be on it for a couple of weeks more) tomorrow.  She is a little concerned about this, so prayers for her regarding this concern would be much appreciated.

We finished her Valentine's cards for her classmates tonight, we are looking forward to having a visitor or two this weekend, and Amelia getting to see some of her friends.  We are getting into a rhythm, settling into life at the Ronald McDonald House and starting to get as close to normal as we can here.

I do want to end with a huge thanks to the friends and supporters out there.  To Gary who is watching our animals.  To our church family at East Hills who has been praying for us and supporting us in so many ways.  To our St Rose family who has been praying for us, working with me to have friends and classmates come visit, and who thinks so fondly of Amelia all the time.  To my mom who is always willing to come up and spend time with Amelia to give me and Katherine a little respite.  You are all greatly appreciated, and we wouldn't be able to focus so fully on Amelia and her getting better if it wasn't for each of you.  Thank you!