Praise God! The day has come. Our father in heaven has once again showered us with his blessings. I told you that the subject line would read “I Told You So” and it does as I wrote about in my July 7th posting titled “God is Great”. The healing has been delivered. Caden has passed a MBS (modified barium swallow) study for the first time and he has been cleared by the doctors and therapists to begin taking food by mouth immediately. Aunt Addie reminded me recently that she was waiting on this subject line. I had almost forgot about it, but praise God the day has come to use those words. I told you that God would provide and he has once again held to his promises. May we all rejoice and give God the glory for this answer to so many prayers. For it is written:
“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” Matthew 7:7 (NIV)
We had almost lost hope this week. Sherry and I truly though that this past weekend would have been when we turned off the suction machine for the last time. We began to become very discouraged when it did not happen that way. We talked openly about our frustration as late as Tuesday evening. Caden had shown improvement over the weekend, but not enough in our opinion to get excited about.
While I say there was not enough to get excited about, we did transition Caden to sleeping in his own room alone this past weekend for the first time in over six months. Sherry and I started sleeping in the same bed at the same time for the first time in almost a year. We did this \due to the improvements we have seen since the botox treatments. Caden still gets “junky” enough to require suctioning, but he has gone as long as five hours without needing to be suctioned. We are now just taking turns with the baby monitor on either side of the bed so that we can be awakened by Caden stirring when he needs to be suctioned.
Caden swallowed both thin liquids and some apple sauce mixed with barium on Wednesday morning. The amounts that he swallowed on each attempt was small, but by far enough for the doctors and therapists to be ecstatic about the results. Sherry even took Caden’s in-home speech therapist with her to the appointment at MUSC on Wednesday so that everyone could be on the same sheet of music with the next steps in Caden’s move to oral feedings.
What does this mean to us exactly? Well, the amount that Caden is able to take by mouth right now is very small and very difficult for him to handle physiologically. Remember that what this little boy is doing for the first time at nine months of age is what most kids figure out within the first hour after birth. From Sherry’s description of today’s MBS, it sounds like Caden took no more than a few milliliters of food or liquid on the swallowing attempts today and the process was a lot of work for him.
Our short term goal is to get Caden’s swallowing functionality up to a point where he needs no more suctioning at all. This will be a great quality of life improvement for him as well as the rest of our family. Caden will remain on g-tube feedings until he is able to sustain his own weight and growth. Even then, he is expected to maintain a g-tube for relieving any upset stomach issues since his Nissen procedure prevents him from burping or vomiting.
Please stop and say a prayer of thanks to God for his promises delivered. God ahs come through for us this week. He has also looked over the Drake family in the past week as Amy gave birth to her little ones on Friday evening. Both children are still in the hospital, but requiring less special medical care by the day. Praise God that both children are breathing without any help and begining to eat a normal diet. Amy was discharged several days ago and is reported as doing good as well.
Please continue to pray for our family. There are needs that are not directly related to Caden’s health that we need prayer for today. I won’t go into it now, but I just ask for you to pray for God’s will to be made clear to Sherry and me in the coming weeks. I know God has a perfect plan for our situation and I know that God will provide the perfect solution for him.
God is Great! I told you so.