Refeeding

Definition:  Refeeding is the process of reintroducing food after malnourishment or starvation.

The ideal weight for her height is 38kg - she was at least 35kg before this eating disorder.  She hit a bottom of only 25kg.  How can a growing child drop over 10kg... :(

Weight, and thus health, recovery was critical.  The 'prescription':

1. 3 meals and 3 snacks a day

2.  Lunch/dinner - 90g protein, 2 spoonfuls of veg  and the equivalent of 150g rice.   

3.  Milk powder 3 times a day

4.  A scoop of protein powder once a day

5.  Medication to help on weight gain and the phobia of food

And I'd thought going back to her normal diet would be enough.  This 'prescription' is definitely more than what she was consuming.  

I am thankful that refeeding was relatively trouble-free.  There were some hiccups and resistance.  But overall she was able to follow the refeeding prescription.  

I quite like this

She is 33kg now.  Other symptoms of the eating disorder are still there.  At least she is no longer on the brink of starvation.

 

Did well

Awards Day was held at SE's school.  SE said everyone got an award for something so I didn't need to to attend.  

Later she found out students were allowed to go home after the event.  Since hers was the morning session, it would be many hours before the transporter arrived.  So she asked me to attend in order to 'rescue' her.  So... ok lah go.

The hall was set up with pomp.  Nice.  The playing of Negaraku always invoke feelings in me now that I seldom hear it.  As the event progressed I realised... SE had done very well indeed!  She received awards in English and Moral for being the overall best in her whole standard.  And one for being second in class.

I was overwhelmed.  My little girl, who had been struggling with anorexia.  Whose health resulted in her having to be kept away from school a whole month, in almost everything else being pushed aside.  I had to hold back the tears.

Proud mama was there!

With my awards

Kudos also to my parents who had been helping her with study-time.

With Ah Mah

Ah Kong shaking my hand

Exercise problem

Anorexia comes with other symptoms besides drastic weight loss.  

For SE, another problem became obvious - obsessive exercising.  She was exercising every moment possible - jumping jacks, planking, leg lifts, running in place... you name it.  Some examples:

1. Before we went to the doctor and found exercise was to avoided in her case, when we was still going swimming together:  

a.  She would swim lengths non-stop until it was time to go

b.  In the shower after the swim, jump up and down

c.  After getting home and having dinner, still request to go for a walk

2. Her teacher called me for a 1-1 chat.  She told me SE had been going missing from classes for long periods at a time and her classmates reported seeing her exercising in the toilet.

3. In the middle of the night, she would wake up and go to the toilet.  Sometimes that wakes me up as well - I would check on her and inevitably find her in the toilet exercising.  

4.  Every time we notice she has been gone a while, we look for her and usually would catch her exercising. 

It was doubly difficult.  Due to her extremely-low weight, exercise would cause stress to the heart and could result in dire consequences.  It would also sabotage the objective of quickly bringing her weight up to a healthy level.

Besides her weight, this was what convinced me she was suffering from anorexia.  I made sure to talk to her at length after catching her exercising, explaining why she cannot be doing that, trying to get her to stop.  But literally the moment I turned away, she would resume.  :(

No I was not doing