Thursday, May 22nd, 2008

Today was all about blue food coloring. Karen will be feeding therapist. She called today to schedule my first appointment with her. It will be June 12th, the week after my surgery. Mommy thought that I needed to complete a swallow study before the feeding therapist wanted to see me but Karen explained that wasn't the case. Actually, for an optimal swallow study I have to be able to eat something by spoon so if I am not used to doing that the swallow study results may not be as good. So, Karen is going to start coming out to work with me so I can be referred on later for the swallow study. Mommy gave her my history of oral feedings (not much in the past but I am very willing now) and explained that she thinks I am aspirating on my feedings. Karen also mentioned the blue dye test - where you add blue food coloring to the feeding and if blue shows up in the trach then I am aspirating. Since aspiration can lead to pneumonia, Mommy had decided a few days ago not to do the test at home prior to the surgery so as not to risk it being cancelled. Karen explained that Mommy could just take a tiny bit of blue food coloring and put it on my tongue without giving me food or juice and we could first test if I am aspirating my secretions. Mommy loves experimenting, so after she got off the phone with Karen, she had me suck on a q tip with blue food coloring. Initially, I drooled a lot of blue but over the next few hours whenever I needed suctioning - it was blue. So now my parents know for sure that I am aspirating and Karen will have a starting point to work with when she comes to visit.

After the excitement of the blue food coloring, I spent time on the floor playing with my brothers. Then, I decided to roll around the floor to get to the toys I wanted. I am not in the mood to crawl so rolling gets me where I need to go.

I decided to play a trick on Daddy tonight after I went to bed. When he wasn't looking I started playing with my feeding tube and disconnected the extension from the feeding bag. When Daddy found out (Marianne had just shown up), I was soaked with milk as was my bed. I don't think he thought the trick was that funny. Oops!

Peyton Nicole Smith