Part of Cee’s plan includes taking medicine twice a day. We gave her the first home dose, and she threw it all back up. :S Not only did we lose the medicine, but we lost the one chicken nugget, two bites of pudding, and glass of apple juice we managed to get into Cee since being home. That means she only had a few bites of oatmeal and a bite of frosting off a doughnut today.
My mom stopped by with her magic and helped Cee eat a few bites of pepperoni pizza later this evening. At least it’s something. Our rheumatologist said that inflammation causes a loss of appetite, and her inflammation is worse than it’s ever been. He thinks that after some time on the medicine, her appetite will improve…but so far we’re 0 for 1 in the medicine war. In the hospital giving her a piece of gum after the medicine worked. We’ve tried drinks and food to take away the flavor. We’ve also tried incentives and bribery. Nothing works.
Although it’s wonderful to be home and even more wonderful to have a diagnosis, I’m exhausted at the daunting task of keeping Cee eating, drinking, and taking her Naproxen. We’re guaranteed she won’t get better if she doesn’t cooperate.
(***Comment from 2017: It hurts to remember just how hard we had to work to get Cee to eat. She lost so much weight in a short amount of time. We were trying anything just to get calories in her. She wouldn’t touch anything, especially the Pediasure “milkshakes” we encouraged her to drink. I watched my daughter wasting away, and there wasn’t anything I could do about it. As soon as she was feeling better, her appetite returned and her eating habits improved. ~Alicia)