Progress

We have been following up with ENT, pediatric surgery and speech therapy every two weeks since Sutton's discharge. We have also worked with our pediatrician to find a local speech therapist so that once we are no longer frequently visiting SLCH Sutton can continue to advance his eating skills.

While the progress feels painstakingly slow for me, his physicians feel like he is making great strides. He can swallow some purees right now (as long as they're not too thin) and speech gave us the go ahead yesterday to give him some "solids." By that I mean squishing tiny bits of fruit between my fingers so that the "solids" will slide down his throat easily. Since he's still learning how to swallow and coughs pretty much anything besides the purees back out, he can only have the things that would navigate down his throat without a lot of extra work. He is doing so much work as it is. We are so proud of him! I've been told that an oral aversion is not uncommon in kids that have been through similar issues, especially after intubation, and we are so thankful that this is not a battle we have had to fight. He is definitely interested in eating still!

Surgery and the dietician have been helping us to transition from his continuous J tube feeds, which are delivered directly into his small intestine, to bolus G tube feeds, which are large volumes delivered a few times a day into his stomach. Right now we are transitioning which means that Sutton gets much more freedom during his awake hours to move around without being attached to the tube. It also means that this mama is setting up and tearing down feeds six different times throughout the day. The day is pretty well consumed with tube feeds or attempting to eat. But Sutton finally feels a little freedom and normalcy and that's what we want. 

Now he and Cohen get to be like regular brothers - with all the love and wrestling that entails :)