Swallow Study, Skin Graft

Here's our Gracie right before her swallow study. They took her down to a different floor and gave her a white liquid through a bottle where they were able to watch her on a moving x-ray to see how she swallows. She did not like the technician putting the bottle in her mouth. She was very upset and turned a little bit purple because she was so mad. She kind of gagged it down a little and the radiologist was able to watch three swallows. She was able to swallow without aspirating it into her lungs, so that was very good. However, she is a long way from taking a bottle. They are going to send Speech Therapy to help her with her mouth movement and swallowing technique. I don't know what that entails yet. So this means they have to keep her feeding tube NJ (which means it goes directly into the intestine). The next step would be to move the feeding tube to NG (which is directly into the stomach) and then of course, to be just bottle fed. She will likely graduate to a combination of an NG tube AND bottle feeding.

Like I had mentioned before, the only thing keeping us in the PICU is Gracie's wound vac. They cannot administer the meds that are required for the dressing changes on the third floor. This afternoon, I talked to the PICU doctor and he said he talked to the plastic surgeon this morning about it. He said that the surgeon said if the wound looked good, then he would take the dressing off and plan to do a SKIN GRAFT!! I had never heard that this was a possibility until today. No one had ever mentioned it before. Every time they have changed her dressing, the surgeon has come by and said that it looked good and that was it. I was pretty upset by this. They would have to take skin from another part of her body and graft it onto the 'hole' on her chest. The area is about the size of a 50 cent piece. They would have to take her down to the operating room and either heavily sedate her or put her breathing tube back in and completely put her under!!!!!!!!!!! If they do this, I may be checking out. Somebody else will have to fill in for me at the hospital for a few days because I don't think I can handle another setback. She has been doing so well and things have been great. The plastic surgeon is coming by in the morning for the dressing change and will make the decision then. So let's hope that she does not have to have this procedure.

My Gracie is 2 months old today!! Happy Birthday BABY! I wish we could go home. There is a small light at the end of the tunnel.