10.13.09 - Little victories

Liam had his barium swallow test at 9:30 this morning.  I got to go with him and watch the test and it was very interesting and I am glad I got to see what the doctors were seeing.  They fed him several different consistencies of barium to see which one he can handle without aspirating.  They x-rayed him while he was drinking so we could see the flow of the milk go down his throat.  Unfortunately, he ws aspirating quite a bit of the normal milk consistency; over half of what they fed him went down his trachea.    The said he has a good strong sucking motion, but his swallow is very weak and delayed.  The doctors confirmed that they need to add thickener to his milk.  The thickener will help the milk go down the right tube plus also help strengthen his swallow muscles.  However, it takes more energy for him to eat now because he has to work harder to get his food down.

The hopeful news is that the neo-natologist seems to think that Liam’s feeding issues will only take time to overcome and are not permanent, but eventually she thinks within weeks or maybe a couple months, he should resume normal feeding.  She did say there is a good possibility we will go home with a feeding tube but it should only be a temporary thing and it will only be for whatever he cannot get down on his own. She was optimistic to start him on the thickened feeds to see how he progresses and said possibly maybe go home by the middle of next week if he progresses well. This was very encouraging news, but I am still going to take it one day at a time and try to celebrate the small steps.

For now, they are bottle feeding him every other feeding and tube feeding in between so he can get rest in between feedings to try to get as much down with the bottle as possible. His first bottle feed today he only got down 6 ml, out of 60 total. But, just now I called to see how his 9:00 pm feeding went and the nurse said he took 20 ml! Yea!! Small steps, but huge progress.

This is such a roller coaster...emotionally and physically. I am just grateful there are ups for all the downs. I am also so thankful for the little things right now, like getting to hold Liam and change his poopey diapers (and he peed and pooped on me twice today!)...I never thought in a million years I'd be thankful for that! Thank you Lord for our little victories...keep em' coming! =)