Samuel's Swallow study

First, sorry that it's been so long since our last post. I will update with pics and sermons soon!


We had a swallow study today for Samuel. He did pretty well and is making progress.
First, the "short, quick" answer: Samuel can now take about 10 ml of fluid by mouth that is fed to him by his speech pathologist. He can also have food pumped into his stomach at a faster rate (in Nov. it was at 45 ml an hour, today we can do up to 175 if he doesn't start to spit up). Unfortunately, it doesn't look like they'll be removing the tube any time soon. We were hoping the tube could come out in the summer, but it will be "at least" the fall before we can even talk about getting the tube out :( So, we are feeling mixed--happy that he has made progress, but a bit disappointed that we aren't as far along as we hoped. When we had the NJ tube (nose tube) placed in Nov. the Dr told us that it would only be in for a few weeks, "at the most 2 months." Now, we're looking at the possibility of having this tube in for upwards of a year....We NEVER expected this.

I guess God is using this year to teach us patience??? I'm not really sure. I tell Shahra that patience is "waiting without complaining" but it's difficult to follow our own advice. We are doing much better than we were in November, but this has still be a very exhausting journey with an ending much farther away than we had originally hoped.

More specific info:

A swallow study is a test using X ray technology to examine how well Samuel is able to swallow. The tech had him eat foods that were very liquid like and foods that were thicker. A healthy baby should be able to eat food that is not thickened at all. In November, Samuel could only eat foods that were pudding thick or thicker. Today, he was cleared to eat foods that are honey thick or thicker (think the thickness of honey). He was not able to eat foods that were nectar thick or unthickened. This means we have a ways to go before he is off the G-Tube and eating everything by mouth.

Well, thanks for all your prayers and thoughts. We'll try to keep everyone updated. Check out the blog for the most recent pics (though I need to update the blog too!!) pjupdates.blogspot.com