Tuesday, April 19, 2011

no beer bong for my baby!

today we had another swallow study. and by we, i mean, me and asher. we did one in a blizzard in december and they found that he aspirates. no explanation why or how long it would go on for or what to do moving forward. just that he aspirates and the entire room paniced and shut down the swallow study when he did it. aspirates means when he swallows some of it goes into the wrong pipe and into his lungs. they told me to change the nipples on his bottles and to sit with him when he drank putting his back to my chest so he couldn't lift his chin too far while drinking. it was never explained to me that every drop of liquid needed to be drank/drunk in this position. and he was 10 months old at that point so i think everyone in the room understood that he ate and drank normal foods and drink all day-not just a bottle. nonetheless the therapies and diagnoses kept coming. weekly. i exaggerate saying that we saw everyone but the split end specialist, and i'm pretty sure if medicaid would cover it, asher's ex-therapist would dream one up. shortly after, exasperated and confused, i talked all of this over with karyssa's speech therapist. she said that her son had alot of the same symptoms and it was his adnoids and i should look into an ENT (ear, nose, throat doctor). so i did. i got an appointment with childrens. i didn't care if they gave me the janitor in the ENT department, i wanted a 2nd opinion. i got a physicians assistant. i told him what was going on, what the other therapist was guiding me towards...or actually...aimlessly pointing me into different directions and he mentioned the aerodigestive clinic. thus the hospital stay a few weeks back, which has then led to his sleep study last week, and lastly (thankfully lastly) another swallow study.
and we got answers. finally! after months of stabbing in the dark and being so worn out from the aimless directions i've been pointed, we have answers!!!
there's a muscle in his throat, the epiglottis, that is supposed to act like an umbrella for his esophagus and airway. and it does-but its timing is off. luckily his trachea is stepping up to bat and moving over causing that fluid to go back up into his throat and down in the right direction. when i asked his ex-therapist where all that liquid is going if it's going into his lungs it was explained to me that "he's active enough that it's just working its way out." that greatly puzzled me. i've never known a liquid that has the mind to get itself righted into the correct organ in my body so that baffled me that it just "worked its way out."
for now i am supposed to thicken all of his liquids, water, milk, juice...anything liquid and in 4 months we'll do another swallow study to see if his epiglottis is getting the point. no beer bongs for my baby any time soon.

CLICK HERE to see the diagram in motion...just hover your cursor over the picture.

1 comment:

lisamariepink said...

Bummer about the beer bong but great news! Happy to hear you have some answers :) It must have been stressful not knowing and thank goodness you have some direction! YEAH!