Brunch date.......

I arrived at the hospital this morning after running some errands and such.. To an amazing sight...Dad eating eggs and thickened coffee!!!!!! His first attempt at eating more solid foods!!! His speech therapist thought that his drive to have coffee, would motivate him to work harder... She was correct, almost.. He does want coffee, but the syrupy thick barely tastes like coffee did not exactly spark his interest... What did get him motivated was the chance to impress Mom and Karlene (and the rest of us with his eating skills).. To this I asked him to let me film him with my phone, he agreed and took several spoonfulls of eggs followed up by spoonfulls of coffee.... Maybe a bit to eager to impress, went a bit faster then he should have and had to work on fully finishing the process.. But he was pleased by his accomplishment and even flashed us a big smile in the end.....

Ironically he was not as interested in the coffee as the therapist thought he would be, (I suspect it was the quality, but then I am a coffee snob)... But the truth of the matter is he really is not that hungry... I know hard to imagine that someone that has not eaten solid foods in over three weeks is NOT hungry,  but truly he is not driven to eat..... In speaking with the therapist after the fact we came to the conclusion that the continuous drip feeding keeping his body fed, is hindering his need to eat the foods they are bringing him.... And ultimately a hindrance to improving his swallow and ability to graduate to the next level.... A talk with the dietitian will hopefully improve this, by changing his continuous drip to a bolus feeding.... Delivering to him the necessary calories and nutrition in several individual sessions as opposed to his current routine..

The hope is this change will then make him actually feel hungry in the mornings, when the speech therapists comes to work with him.. And ultimately drive him to work harder and improve his ability to swallow completely faster..... Looking forward to my next brunch date...