Another day in PICU

Well another day has come and gone here in PICU. Ethan is still doing well, but there are still no beds available in CICC so we'll be here in PICU again tonight. We will do our best to get some new pictures of our sweet son on the blog soon. The nurse said he took all his feedings by bottle, no NG tube needed! This was a small answered prayer, but still an answered prayer none the less.

We did have a small setback again today. At 1pm he had a swallow study done (he was fed a bottle of barium and had an x-ray done at the same time to watch his swallowing pattern). I (Julie) got to feed him the bottle and Dan watched with the radiology tech and speech therapist (ST) as the liquid went down his throat. We learned that towards the end of his bottle feeding, he had one small silent aspiration episode (this means that when he swallowed, it went down his windpipe instead of his esophagus and he didn't cough it up). Therefore, the speech therapist ordered him to start having his feeds thickened. The two options are formula thickened with rice cereal or breastmilk thickened with a really expensive thickening gel that can only be purchased online. He will have to stay on this eating plan for the next couple of months, until just before his next surgery when they'll do another swallow study. The ST said the silent aspiration is common for newborns who've had surgery and had to be intubated and that it is something that he should grow out of, so that's encouraging! Please be praying that he grows out of it sooner rather than later.

Another praise is that our friend's baby, Shelby, had her heart cath today and Dr. Stewart said it went well so she's scheduled to return in 2 weeks for her 2nd stage of surgery - The Glenn. Be praying for this family as they prepare mentally and physically for this next surgery. Shelby just turned 5 months old last week and her parents can hardly believe the time has come so quickly. We really enjoyed the quality time we got to spend talking with Shelby's mom last night and today. It's so encouraging to see Shelby doing so well - just looking at her, you'd never know anything was wrong on the inside! This was just the little boost of encouragement we needed to keep hanging in there a little bit longer.