Week 228: Into the new

Welcome to 2018! We closed out 2017 with the last few days of Grandma and Grandpa's visit, followed by a few days at a water park in the Wisconsin Dells (aka America's water park capitol), and our annual New Year's eve party. We celebrate with the Azores to ensure bed-time compatibility.














Although last week I focused on all the positive aspects of our clinic visit, there is, of course, always one cloud in the sky: nutrition, in this case. As I'd expected based on my own observations at home, Lemon had not gained any weight since June, but had grown 1.5cm since September. So, his BMI fell from the 70th percentile to the 40th. As his nurse practitioner pointed out, 40th isn't actually all that bad (long-time readers will remember the bad old days when we were in the 5th percentile for BMI). And it's not quite accurate to say that he hasn't gained any weight since June. He has. And then has lost it again. And gained and lost and gained and lost without any ability to get ahead with all the various colds he's had since school started.

So, it is time for a new and improved nutrition plan. The plan I wanted was a plan to get more calories into a smaller volume of formula, so that when we have to cut back the volume of tube feeds due to illness we don't fall quite as far behind on the calorie count. Of course, this is not a standard plan, but it turns out if you push a bit, there is a way. We left our clinic visit with a sample canister of a product with the appealing name of Scandical, which is essentially concentrated, powdered, tasteless, odorless, soluble calories. Given that Lemon was underweight from being sick off and on for so long, I tested whether adding a few tablespoons of the powder (the equivalent of about 120 calories) to his regular overnight feed could help him get the weight back on. Short answer: yes. Within a week, he'd put on over a pound. It's amazing what a hundred or so extra calories a day will do.

The only minor hitch is that, upon requesting more Scandical, I learned that the product has been discontinued, but never fear, a similar product called Duocal is also a thing. Now I just have to figure out where to get it from and how it gets paid for, but everyone needs a good January project. I do feel mildly crazy that my son's "diet" is essentially a chemistry experiment, when I'm seeing everyone posting about how they're eating only whole foods or giving up added sugar or whatever other totally laudable New Year's resolution they've come up with. Some day. He did eat 6 Froot Loops and a slice of yellow pepper today, not bad for a sick day. Did I mention we have yet another cold/cough combination going on? Well, we do, so good thing we have this new high-calorie nutrition plan to play with.

The kids are off from school next week so at least they will have one more relatively exposure-free week to recover from whatever they have now before going back. I had some fantasy that we were going to use this winter break to teach Lemon how to swallow pills. Hah. I'm sure we'll have time some day. Maybe we can do it this spring, right around when we're going to try and potty-train Lime. That should make for a soothing month or two. I already have a sense that 2018 is going to be another eventful year.