Moving Ahead...

The last few weeks...

It took about two or three weeks for Braden's lungs to clear up after the last time we tried thickened liquids orally. He was obviously aspirating the thickened liquid but we are not sure if it was because he wasn't ready yet or because we had to teach him how to drink again. When we were trying to re-teach Braden how to drink we made the hole in his bottle big enough that the milk would come out easily and this may have increased his risk of aspiration.

Now that his lungs are cleared up again (and now that he is over the flu) :-) we are going to try feeding him orally from a sippy cup. He knows how to drink the thickened liquids from a cup now and so he won't be able to swallow too much at a time hopefully therefore decreasing his risk of aspiration. The doctors have said to try this for four or five days and by then (like last time) we should have a good indication as to how he is handling it.

We are hoping that this goes well and that we can continue to see improvement in Braden's condition. It is always comforting for us to see some improvement so that we know it is moving in the right direction.

All things are in God's hand and we put our hope and trust in Him.

A little setback

So since our last post we have tried thickened milk for Braden and after a few days of persistance he took to the bottle quite well. We started with a cup but he couldn't get the hang of it. It was going well for a couple of days and then we started noticing signs of aspiration again. Braden was starting to sound wheezy and noisy with his breathing and he was coughing a bit again too. It got progressively worse over the beginning of this week and after talking with the nurse at Children's hospital and with the advice of the pediatrician we put Braden's ng tube back in on Wednesday. We had taken it out on Monday after realizing that we were able to keep him hydrated with the thickened milk. So at least he got a bit of a reprieve from the tube taped to his face but not long enough as far as we are concerned.

It has been a dissapointment after having some brief hope that he might be getting better even quicker than we thought he would but I guess it was too good to be true :-)

We will be patient and continue with the tube feedings for a couple of weeks and see how long it takes for his lungs to clear up. After that we will see if we try a bottle again or just wait until we go back for another follow up appointment at Childrens in June.

Thank you for all the continued support we receive! It is a blessing to us and very much appreciated!