Unfinished Business

You may have noticed a pretty bare post from the end of February. Why is that post made up of only a title and a few letters? Well, in all of my anti-technology glory, I am literally incapable of blogging on my laptop without accidentally deleting it right before posting. I do not love laptop mousepads. Way too much room for error for someone like me. My hands may be small, but they are not agile, quite clumsy actually. And they love to brush over whatever makes my text disappear. I do certainly appreciate the waiting until the entire blog is one sentence away from being finished. Anyhow, this is the reason for my unfinished business if you will. Actually, due to pure laziness, most of my blogs are written while I am lying in bed (or at the hospital-not so lazy). It's pretty hard to get my desktop up on my lap, so the laptop is the computer of choice for blogging. Unfortunately, I really do accidentally delete at least half of them. Sometimes they are important, and I try again. Most of the time, however, I just get really frustrated and vow to never attempt to write anything of any importance on the laptop again.......then I remember about the lazy part, and I do it all again. This time, I thought I'd be safe and write from my office, on my stationary computer, where it takes some serious talent to accidentally delete my entire text.

That particular post was about something a little bit important, even though we didn't get a lot of answers. On the 18th, I believe, Miles had his appointment with an ENT at Primary. It was basically another attempt to label whatever respiratory issues keep sending him to the emergency room. If you'll remember back before Christmas, we first met with Dr. Kang, a pulmonologist. After review of several of Miles' x-rays (amongst other things), he determined that something was allowing fluid into his lungs. They would get inflamed, and he would end up with breathing problems. A lot of the time, the er would mistake the cloudiness for mild pneumonia. Anyway, after Miles' barium swallow study came back normal, he directed us to the ENT to see if they could see anything. Hence, our visit.

The test was a lot like the swallow study. They had him drink fluids of different consistencies, and watched it all go down. The difference is that with the swallow study, it was basically done in front of a large x-ray machine. With this study, they actually ran a camera up his nostril and down his throat, and we got to watch it all on tv. Very interesting. As you can imagine, Miles had a little problem with the tube up his nose. He has been suctioned a few too many times, and I'm sure that this brought back some pretty awful memories. A nurse who was thinking on her feet brought in some noisy toys to distract him with though, and that really remedied the situation. I'm sure that the whole experience was much more involved, but honestly, that was almost a month ago, and I can barely remember this morning. Anything else that happened during the actual exam must not have been that important.

Again the study didn't show much. The doctor did confirm that his vocal chords seem to all be intact, no apparent nicks, and no paralysis. The scope did, in fact, show the liquid pooling, which later can result in it "going down the wrong tube". The reason that I got for this wasn't very impressive though. He has an underdeveloped swallow reflex. There's not really anything to do to fix it either. Great! We just have to keep doing what we've been doing. Thicken all of his beverages with rice cereal (including even soup) and make sure he's upright when he drinks. That's much easier said that done when he's freaking out for a bottle half asleep at 3am.