This Crazy Life

So of course, I’ve been thinking.  I mean what else would I do when I’m trying to turn off my brain and fall asleep.  Her current psychologist has talked to her quite a bit about doing an oil exposure.  But she doesn’t think it will really help anything and I really don’t disagree.  She doesn’t have any problems when she’s in treatment.  Then it hit me, the problem is unknown calories.  When she doesn’t know the calorie count, she really freaks out and the distress hits an all time high.  This is why at home she worries about oil or unknown things.  She then doesn’t know what she’s consuming.  She knows in the hospital and treatment that are tracking all of her calories.  And even if she’s eating more than she prefers she also tracks all of her calories in the hospital or treatment.  When she doesn’t know the calorie count, she’ll supplement.  Even though they don’t tell her the amount of supplement she’s been doing this long enough I guarantee she can get pretty darn quote.  I know when I find her scribbles in the hospital she’s always right on.  Her therapist also thinks this explains some of her table behaviors.  She separates the food, then she may eat it back together, but she’s getting a visual of the amount of everything in the food so she can estimate calories.  So how do you give her food or drink blindly?  Start exposing her to unknown calories so she can realize it’s going to be ok and it’s not going to hurt her.  Start making her uncount calories.  The only way I could come up with was with blind feedings through a feeding tube.  I honestly don’t even care if they just give her water.  But the key is she can’t see and know how much or what it is.  So, I mentioned this to her therapist today, she really liked the idea.  She doesn’t know about the feeding tube, but she thought they could do shakes/smoothies.  She wouldn’t know what was in them and couldn’t estimate calories and we all know calories in a shake or a smoothie can vary wildly.  So, stay tuned.  My daughter is going to hate the idea, but I’m kind of excited to see if it helps at all.