A Plan of Attack Emerges

The Team doctors have mapped out a plan for the next week and if all goes well Emily will come home late next week. The plan includes me doing meal support on my own with Derek joining in on the weekend. On Monday, Derek and I will get training on her nutrition requirements and start selecting Emily's meals for her from the hospital menus. This will help prepare us for meal planning at home. Emily doesn't have any say in what she eats but we can make choices for her based on what we know she likes and prep methods that she prefers. Emily gets to stay away from thinking about food choices to help keep her anxiety minimized. She told me that it was really challenging and tiring to be constantly trying to figure out exactly what she would allow herself to eat. She was consumed with thoughts about food all day, every day and now she finds it is a bit of a relief to not have to think about it. Even now when she gets her meal tray she looks at everything and does a mental calculation of calories and fats and leaves the food items with the high numbers to last.

Medically things have improved considerably, she doesn't need to be hooked up to the heart monitor during the day, she can have daily showers, she can walk for 30 minutes a day, blood work will be done once a week. Next week she will get a pass to go out of the hospital for a few hours, she wants to go to Superstore to get a sweater from the Joe Fresh line. She gained weight but I haven't heard how much and they have not indicated what her healthy body weight is. They don't like to discuss numbers with patients because they get too fixated on them.

It has been recommended that I take 4-6 weeks off work to implement the program at home. Dr. C, will provide a letter for work. We might need to remove some mirrors because it is common for patients to be a little obsessive and distorted in their physical appearance. Dr. C, told Emily to expect to not like her appearance but to try to trust the opinon of others because her thinking will be distorted.

Things I've learned to day:
She doesn't like being asked to try to eat a bit more once she makes decision that she is done, this makes want to resist eating even more.
She is still afraid of coming home and experiencing conflict with us over meals
Dr. C, says most patients end of with stronger relationships with their families after going through this treatment program
Our weekly sessions will take about 2 hours and will be at a regular day and time each week.
Apple picking is the goal
Physical activity will be restricted to normal movement required for daily actitivities until further notice and then introduced very slowly
School work comes after health, but return to school will be gradual and based on her comfort level.
She doesn't seem very interested or bothered about school work right now