Intensive Feeding

Because of Jackson's Liver Transplant he is obviously behind in many areas of normal development. He has been going to outpatient therapy and early on since his first birthday. He does speech for feeding and talking, occupational, and physical therapy. It keeps us very busy with appointments but we have had a lot of success, even though it is at a very slow pace.
Many of you probably don't realize how bad his feeding is. He is only eating pureed food and has only been doing that since he was 1. He refuses sippy cups (most of the time) and will not chew food. I was talking with his pediatrician (who is amazing, we absolutely adore her) and asked if there was more we could do. She said DeVos along with Mary Free Bed offers an Intensive Feeding Therapy Clinic that she could refer him to. We decided to go ahead with this and do the evaluation.
The evaluation was last week Thursday. It was an hour and a half long process. We pretty much were on display for about 6 professionals. This included a psychologist, speech therapist, neurologist, dietician,a social worker, and a few other assistants. WOW. They were not lying it was a pretty intense evaluation. Very well run though. They all sat in and asked questions therefore, I didn't have to repeat myself! That in and of itself was such an amazing thing to encounter. Two years of dealing with numerous doctors has taught me how valuable it is for me and him and the doctors to just do things once, especially interviews and evaluations.
Anyways.
Jackson did VERY well. I was nervous but he exceeded my expectations. All the people fell in love with him. Just couldn't get over his little personality and obvious good looks (insert sarcasm here). He had to eat in front of them. I had to do a lot of things to distract him, while they probbed around his mouth. The neurologist did a small assessment of him to make sure all was well with development.
Basically what we learned was that he is behind. Obviously. But he is where he should be for being behind. With all the medical intervention he has needed, with all of his illness, he is absolutely normal. Praise God. This is actually such a relief for me. I don't know why, but sometimes you feel like your kid is never going to catch up or get it but to hear that he's where he should be and that it's a treatable problem is great news.
Now he did qualify for this progam. He is basically not strong enough to chew foods and use his mouth like a normal 2 1/2 year old. So he needs to get stronger before we can expect him to do certain things.
That being said, there is a 9 month waiting list. The program is 6 weeks, everyday, every meal. We have not decided whether or not we will do it. Basically, it's a huge commitment, it seems like an obvious answer but there are many things that need to be discussed before we throw ourselves into this. Please pray and think about us as this is a hard decision to make. There are things like me being able to work, insurance issues, and many more that need to be worked out before we can make it all happen. I have a strong love/hate relationship with our insurance company. Thank God for them, but it is such a pain in the butt to get things covered for Jackson sometimes. We will be taking a little time to make the decision but in the meantime he will continue all therapy and they will give Holland some advice on how to deal with him. Sorry for the long post!

Steph