Occupational Therapy

If I am being honest here, Arley has been struggling quite a bit lately. Most notably with her legs. She still can't walk for extended periods of time without getting tired and wanting to be carried plus she also still trips and falls.

She goes to weekly PT sessions, but every now and then complains about her legs. After last weeks session she was so worn out and complained about the pain that I had to give her a small dose of medicine just to relax her enough to be able to sleep. 

I am beyond frustrated at this point. I have had doctors say that it's probably growing pains, but to me growing pains shouldn't be lasting this long. I hate seeing my child go through this and be helpless to how to go about helping to make her feel better. My mom guilt has been through the roof for weeks now. 

To top all of this off she also met with the feeding team the other day and they decided that she is going to need Occupational Therapy now too. If you have known Arley since she was a baby then you would know that we have had huge battles of trying to get her the right formula and then baby food, before moving on to table food.

She was very late in the game with all of that due to her allergies, gag reflex and texture issues. I remember being told that eventually she would grow out of it, but here we are almost 5 years later and she still eats only a handful of foods. 

She's definitely not starving, but her palate is extremely limited and it gets tiresome feeding her the same things over and over again. On the other hand it is what it is, I choose my battles, and this isn't one of them.

Thankfully the feeding team seemed quite supportive in what I am doing so far. Making it a positive experience, praising her when she tries a new food even if it is few and far between. I am not the type of parent that is going to demand she eat what's in front of her knowing full well that she won't, I do cater to her likes because lets face it, if you went through what she does you would cling to what tastes good too.

I don't want Arley to develop any ill will towards the foods she eats and be subjected to an eating disorder when she's older because of it. That's the last thing either of us needs. There is also a bit of sensory going on with her too because the look of a food can set her off and if she tastes something she doesn't like she throws it up, rather than spitting it out.

With going to Occupational Therapy the idea is getting her to play with her food. Looking at it, touching it, chopping it up, or whatever else it is they decide to do. The ultimate goal is to expand on the foods she eats, but getting her to do so is not going to be an easy feat.

People have also suggested that the peer pressure so to speak of seeing other kids her age at school would probably help her in wanting to try new foods too. Yeah no. Arley is way too smart for that. If the visual component wasn't there, then I would probably agree that yes she would be more apt to trying foods, but if something doesn't look right, she's not going near it.

We haven't even begun the OT and just thinking about it I am exhausted. It's just another appointment to add to our agenda, one more battle we have to try and conquer and if I can be blunt, I'm pretty much over it. Wishing on all the stars in the sky that things can just be normal, but knowing full well that this is our normal and it has been for years.

I can't lay any blame on her though, she gets this trait from me. I was a very picky eater when I was her age, but eventually the older I got the more foods I was willing to try, but it took me well into my 20s to expand my horizons. Fuck, karma is a bitch.

We have some more appointments we need to get lined up as well as meeting with more specialists, so once that has been done I will post more updates soon.