Swallow Study!

Zadie had her long awaited swallow study today.  The last time she was admitted to the hospital with pneumonia, her pulmonologist suggested that perhaps she was aspirating and therefore should not eat by mouth until she was able to get a swallow study.  That is where they xray you while you eat to see where the food is going (and hopefully not into the lungs.)  Then, Zadie had her palate repair and had to recover from that and finally was cleared last week to get the study.

Today was finally the day.  I pureed up some banana and breastmilk (who wants some?!) in my awesome  Blendtec blender and dug out the sippy cup that she hasn't used in about a month.  We headed off to the hospital without really knowing what to expect.  When we finally got into the room, they sat Zadie in this little chair and strapped her in.  She was so ticked off!  I put on my big lead vest and they set up the xray camera next to her.  It was cute to see her little head moving around on the xray screen.  After they added the barium to the banana puree, I started to feed her.  She was flipping out, probably very hungry and not happy about sitting in that seat at that moment.  But they kept telling me to give her more, so every time she opened her mouth to cry, I'd just stick another spoonful in.  I was trying to watch the screen while feeding her, and I did get to see her swallowing!  Then we tried just the straight breastmilk and she did great with that, too.  It was all very fast-paced and was over pretty quickly.  She passed with flying colors!

With just a week and a day to spare until her birthday, Zadie says, "Bring on the birthday cake!"