Feeding Evaluation

Sorry, time seems to slip away from me. 


Anabelle had a feeding evaluation yesterday, it was a long one.. a 2 hour appointment. The speech therapist said that she is at a high risk to have an acute life threatening event at home... Mind you, this was yesterday, and I had to return to work today... 


Her issue is she is having problems breathing while eating. She can't seem to get the 'suck, swallow, breath' pattern down. Camille, the speech therapist, suggested we breastfeed when possible because she seems to do slightly better then with a bottle. She also gave us a bottle they usually use for kids with cleft palates. It's a weird looking thing... Camille also wants us to feed her every 2 hours during the day. Listen to this.. So we are to feed Anabelle, and let her try to eat for 40 minutes, but no longer. Then have her in an upright position for another 20 minutes. So that's an hour, and then we have an hour to get something done, and start again. Kyle was at home with all three girls today, and this is not going to work. Not saying he's not trying, but with both of us at home it's hard! 


Opps, got side tracked. Anyway, Camille thinks Anabelle is at a high risk for aspiration. She is trying to get us into our ENT (ears, nose, throat) appointment faster then the 15th. ENT will be able to see what the issue is behind her breathing problem. They can determine if it's just as easy as some extra tissue in her nasal passage, or if it's bigger. They will also determine if she should have a feeding tube or eventually g-tube. The feeding tube is something they only like to do for a max of 6 weeks, and a g-tube means another surgery. If your not familiar with surgeries, when they put you under full anesthesia, your bowels go to sleep, kinda. So that makes me nervous... Plus it's another surgery. But if it means that she won't aspirate, and will get the feedings she needs to, then be it. She also wants us to have a moderate barium swallow study, sleep study, meet with pulmonary, get set up with a GI, and have Kyle and I go through Infant CPR, just in case...  And then come back for another feeding eval in two months to see where we are. She also thinks she might have sleep apnea... 




I know it will all be fine, I just want to get there! I hate the waiting and politics that are behind all of this. Camille was frustrated that the ENT changed Anabelle's appointment from urgent to non urgent. She is calling the doctor himself and seeing if she can get him to understand and fit us in somewhere. It's nice to have someone in our corner fighting for us :) 


Other then the feeding eval, we got her cast changed this week too! She was starting to develop a little pressure sore on the back of her ankle, so they put a band-aid and extra gauze, so her legs look really big this week. And they are coming down a bunch, I think the weight it helping. 


Well she's hungry, so I will update once we get more done.


With love, 
The Polks