Swallow Study

Conner's first full bath since his heart surgery! He loved it!

Tomorrow is Conner's 3rd Swallow Study. He has not had one since March, when he was still taking a bottle and his binki. Now, he doesn't take either, doesn't remember how and throws up when we try and practice with him. I'm so nervous for my sweet little baby to have to go through the 'test' tomorrow. What they do for the test, is they feed a baby a liquid called barium (a yucky chalky substance that can be seen on an x-ray), and watch it on a live x-ray to see what happens with the swallowing. This is how they can see if the baby is aspirating (getting liquid into the lungs, which is dangerous) and also check for reflux. Seeing as how Conner doesn't swallow anything right now (other than his own saliva, and I'm sure some reflux), it makes me so sad to think of how it will turn out tomorrow. They said that they will most likely just have to squirt the liquid into his mouth to see what he does with it. How would you like it, if you were just sitting there and then all of sudden a nasty liquid was squirted into your mouth without you being prepared? You would probably choke and cough and be pretty sad, right? That is what I'm sadly expecting for tomorrow, and I'm thinking I will probably (actually I'm sure I will) cry, when they are doing it. My sweet little Conner. I wish his reflux could disappear and he could miraculously remember how to eat from a bottle and love and take his binki like he used to. Hmmmm, wishful thinking. We would sure appreciate a few prayers in Conner's direction to help him do the best that he can with the swallow study and that it can be an accurate depiction of how is doing with swallowing/refluxing, so that it can give us some direction to know what to do with his feeding/reflux issues.