Good news and bad news

Thanks to everyone for your prayers for this morning's swallow study. I should have asked you to also pray that Natalie would cooperate, but she's always SOOO cooperative at medical visits that I didn't think about it.

That's the bad news...she didn't cooperate very well. Her reaction reminded me of her last two hair cutting appointments: the moment she sees the chair we want her to sit in, she freaks out (for Natalie). She cried and tried to get out of the straps of the chair, but she actually didn't protest as much as she could have. But when they were ready to start the test, she wouldn't take a sippy cup, so they had to give her the different liquids with a syringe into her mouth.

The good news is...she did not aspirate anything, even on thin liquids! Whoo hoo! Sarah (her therapist who had given Natalie e-stim therapy and had also been there for the past two swallow studies) said her swallow had significantly improved since the last swallow study (I had asked Sarah to review the last study before today so she could see if there was any improvement or regression). Sarah said Natalie is starting her swallow much more quickly than she did 7 months ago (Natalie starts swallowing before the liquid is as far down her throat as she used to). There is still some mild delay in her swallowing, but the fact that we've seen a noticeable improvement is great news.

But...since Natalie didn't cooperate and take multiple swallows from her sippy cup, we cannot be 100% certain that she is safe on thins. On the other hand, this is a pretty good indication that as she's growing, her swallow is improving, and she's likely to only improve even more now.

So we're going to decrease the amount of thickener we use for her drinks, and gradually fade it out completely (I have about 2-3 months' supply of thickener left, so we'll probably use it up and not replace it, and see how she does for a while.) Sarah said we shouldn't ask for another swallow study unless we're concerned about how she's doing.

It's so funny (to me) that the title of my post following her swallow study the time before last was the same as today's title, but the results were the exact opposite! Ok, I'll take today's results over last year's results, any day!

Tom pointed out the best part about today: this was probably her last swallow study!