That's dedication!

Seems we have been working FOREVER to get Jacob to take medicine. As part of his therapy program, he practices once or twice a day. Right now he comes to me (during therapy, with his IA) and says "time to take medicine!" I give him three doses of "medicine" which are randomized to include two pieces of chalky candy (sweet tarts, usually) and 1/2 of a Tums. Many kids' medicines are a chalky texture that needs to be chewed, so we are starting off with the Tums. When we started this originally, he wouldn't even eat sweet tarts because he hated that chalky texture.

His gastroenterologist would like him to try taking Prevacid...we have a hunch he is experiencing some reflux. The version they gave us is a chalky tablet that you don't chew - it dissolves in your mouth. He doesn't understand that he needs to NOT chew and just let it melt in his mouth. So we are going to start including it in his medicine program.

In order to do this, his clinical supervisor decided to try video modeling. One of his IAs (JoyLynn) volunteered to actually take a Tums and a Prevacid on video, in order to show the difference between chewing and NOT chewing. Today another IA came over during JoyLynn's session with Jacob and we recorded the whole thing. I did my part as Mom and she did what Jacob is supposed to.

I feel like she deserves a special medal for chewing up the Tums, the sweet tarts, and then even taking the Prevacid. Turns out the aftertaste is disgusting! Very bitter...she said it's like aspirin in applesauce. Good to know, since there's probably no way we could get him to take it repeatedly (I was under the impression that it tasted fine as long as it wasn't chewed). I think JoyLynn practically had tears in her eyes from the taste!

Did I mention what a great team Jacob has? They truly care for Jacob and it's obviously they want him to succeed. We are blessed!