Swallowing is one of those natural instinct type of things for most people. I see it as sort of in the same category with blinking your eyes. Most people have to concentrate to keep themselves from swallowing saliva even for a few minutes. Try it! Try NOT swallowing for just five minutes. Use the kitchen timer and see how much you end up drooling all over yourself after just five minutes if you don’t swallow. Its hard to not swallow.
Well for Caden this has been the story of his life since birth. Caden has never swallowed more than a trickle of liquids and that was likely not coordinated, based on nearly a dozen MBS (modified barium swallow) studies he has had done in his short four years. Caden gets all of his nutrition, hydration, and oral medication through a feeding tube. You would not know it to see him play as most other four year old boys do.
As for me, I got a very clear glimpse of Caden’s swallowing difficulties this week and I am pretty sure my mom (Nana) did too. Oddly enough, my mom and I have suffered for years with something called a Schatzki Ring. The wikipedia article I linked to does a pretty good job of describing the systems that my mom and I have experienced as recently as this week. Caden’s issues are not related to Schatzki Ring in any way but the symptoms are very similar.
Patients with Schatzki rings can develop intermittent dysphagia (difficulty swallowing), or, more seriously, a completely blocked esophagus.
What has happened in my experiences with Schatzki Ring is that some mucus mixed with the right size and consistency of food has clogged up my esophagus just above my stomach. Many of you may have experienced food going down really slow. Imagine it stopping and not letting even a sip of liquid get past. One time it was not food for me but one of those coated Claritan D tablets. Yesterday it was corn chips. I had just sat down with my buddy David for some Mexican food at one of regular spots in Mount Pleasant. He was in mid sentence filling me in on the latest big things happening in his life when it happened. I did not realize it but a bite of tortilla chips had failed to complete the trip to my stomach. I took a big drink of Coke only to have it back up into my throat and into the back of my mouth. It hit my gag reflex and I almost caused a scene that would have ruined lunch for everyone on that end of the restaurant. I jumped up while David was talking and bolted for the restroom. There I proceeded to gag myself to see if I could get the clog to come up. I rarely, if ever, get things too go down when it is a bad clog like this one was. In this process I got quite a bit of mucus in the vicinity of my airway and was unable to breathe for a few seconds. Fortunately I had enough air in my lungs to burst out and clear a path to my airway through all the mucus. I finally got the clog cleared and was able to resume lunch.
There are a couple of less evasive ways to treat the clogs that happen as a result of a Schatzki Ring. My mom and I both have had the levcin (spelling?) tablet put under our tongue. That is how they cleared my mom’s clog when she went to the ER this week. The last time I went to the ER with a clog was back in October 2004. Sherry and I had just had a baby shower. Well it was more like a card shower that Aunt Addie had arranged. We knew Caden was going to be hospitalized after birth and Aunt Addie rallied the troops to get us a bunch of gift cards to help with the gas and the extra eating out associated with an average of two 50 mile round trips to MUSC per day. We surprised Sherry as an add on to Riley’s second birthday party that day since we already had a hoop of people at the house. After the shower Sherry and I went to dinner at Olive Garden with Aunt Robin. It was the first bite of Chicken Parmesan that got me that night. Sherry had her dad come pick her up while Robin took me to MUSC. They ended up giving me an IV drug that helps relax the muscles in the area where the clog was at the bottom of my esophagus.
There is one more way to treat Schatzki ring that seems to have a longer term effect. Those of you who were following this blog back in 2004 may remember that I had a procedure just a few weeks after Caden was born. He was still in the PCICU and I had to get this thing done that caused me to be sedated. The procedure I had was a dilation of my lower esophagus sphincter.
I have been given a glimpse of what Caden lives with every day of his life. He has never pasted a mouth full of liquid through his upper GI track as far as we know. When he gets congested like he has been all this week with a head cold he has a very difficult time coughing up the mucus. He often gasps for breathe and will cry out for us to come suction the back of his little throat so that he can breathe freely and go back to sleep. Tonight he has cried out three times already and it is just after 1AM. It has been like this all week.
I am not complaining about what I have experienced with my own health. I tell you my story to help illustrate from first hand experience what it is like to not be able to swallow if even for a few moments. I tell you this to let you know how much Caden needs your ongoing prayers. He lives a tough life with the swallowing difficulties. Most people who see him at church or in the store or on the street have no idea how he may have suffered the night before.
Please pray for Caden. Please pray.