Leaps and bounds

Over the weekend Sutton made phenomenal progress in managing his secretions. He cut his suctioning by more than 50%!

Yesterday, his neck sutures were removed. The incision looks really good. Our ENT did a great job working it into a fold on his neck, so as it heals it will not be terribly noticeable. 

Also, his G button was advanced to a G-J button and his feeds were restarted. His secretions started to pick up again after the advancement, but before tube feeds, and he vomited bile again shortly after his feeds were restarted. This kid. They opted to vent the G portion of his button while maintaining feeds in the J portion. The G portion has been putting out fewer gastric secretions today, but he is still vomiting bile today when he coughs excessively, so I think it was the right call to advance his button so his feeds could go into his small intestine and avoid being refluxed. General surgery says they are comfortable continuing the advancement of his feeds. He is currently up to 1/3 of goal feeds without refluxing any of it!

The biggest news of the day: ENT did a portable fiber optic scope at his bedside to determine vocal cord function and view the upper portion of his esophageal repair. HIS CORDS ARE TOUCHING!! I know this may seem a bit shouty, but do you know what this means?!! He gets to work with speech therapy to try some thickened liquids and possibly some finger foods. We're hoping that will happen tomorrow, but it depends on their schedule. Now, the portable scope showed that the cords were only weakly coming together, but THEY ARE COMING TOGETHER! This is huge progress. His voice is remarkably stronger than a week ago. We are so excited about this progress even though we still have a pretty decent road ahead of us. 

She also noted that there is still a decent amount of swelling internally and the sutures seem to be causing some minor irritation. We will just have to let time pass for the sutures to dissolve and the swelling to recede. 

ENT would like to scope again at a later date to have video function so she can see how well each cord is moving. She thought she saw some twitching on the (previously paralyzed) right side, but without better visualization she's not sure. 

We are keeping up with the hope that we could be discharged home late this week or early next week. Please pray for his continued forward progress. 

And here is a picture of some sweet post-scope snuggles and a nap (he's not a big snuggler, so this was very special for mama).