Jackson Day is a little blonde, blue-eyed 4-year-old boy who loves watching his movies, playing video games with his daddy, doing crafts with his mommy and playing T-ball with his friends. He is like any other 4-year-old until it is time to eat. That is because Jackson has never learned the suck-then-swallow pattern necessary to eat, something that comes so natural to most of us.

Jackson has had a feeding tube since he was 2 months old. He has always shown delayed oral motor skills with associated sensory issues that have impeded his ability to accept and manage a wide variety of foods by mouth. His medical history started with a 31-week premature birth, surgery to repair tracheoesophageal fistula, (an abnormal opening between the trachea and esophagus) low muscle tone, swallow dysfunction, hypothyroidism, gastroesophageal reflux, feeding difficulties, food allergies and childhood Apraxia of speech, a motor speech disorder.

Once Jackson was finally discharged from the hospital, he went through the in-home, physical, occupational and speech therapy program with the Infants and Toddlers program with Frederick County. In November of 2006, Jackson then went through the inpatient feeding program at the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore and he entered the program 100% tube dependent. At some point he incurred “RSV” (Respiratory syncytial virus) a viral disease of the lungs one of the most important causes of lower respiratory tract illnesses; but after 8 weeks of intense feeding therapy 7 days each week and occupational and speech therapy 3-4 days each week, Jackson graduated accepting “pureed” food orally for the first time. It proved a huge success.

However, despite such success, whole foods – their taste, enjoyment, participation with his family – are still not available to him. New flavors, texture or increased volume triggers the reflux. In addition, Jackson still must continue speech and occupational therapy two to four times each week locally and also travels to Kennedy Krieger twice a month for outpatient feeding therapy to increase textures and work on self feeding.

Jackson is currently on the Waiting List Kennedy Krieger’s feeding program. Our goal is to help Jackson overcome his aversion to texture and to be completely off of the feeding tube. It would be wonderful to see him eat a chicken nugget or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich like other 4 year old children do. We look forward to seeing him when eating will be a pleasure, not a torture treatment.

THE SCOOP: We have an anonymous donor who is prepared to donate one dollar to the Jackson Day Cause for each can of food we collect for our local Frederick food bank (up to $500.) Cans will be collected at various MOM’S Club® events beginning Thursday, September 24th (at our monthly meeting), and will continue through Sunday, November 15th. Current drop off locations include the following homes:

Pam Day - 147 Harpers Way, Frederick - in North Crossing (off of Christopher’s Crossing)

Chrissy Miller - 1923 Harpers Court - in North Crossing (off of Christopher’s Crossing)

Mary Ann Beane - 7905 Opossumtown Pike (place cans on back deck)

Please feel free to tell your friends and neighbors and we can collect a WHOPPING
BUNCH of canned food for the food bank’s upcoming holiday meals!

Willing to collect cans? Have questions or concerns? Contact
Chrissy Miller at 301-624-5825 or csmiller03@gmail.com