raising hunter

I meant to to update yesterday but obviously that didn't happen...anyways...Hunter is still doing good. He was even up out of bed playing with trucks and putting stickers all over mom and dad.

Poor guy pulled out both his iv's so of course they had to put one back in. Super fun...oh and he pulled his feeding tube out yesterday. You guessed it, they had to put that back in as well. Both iv's and feeding tube were originally placed while he was under anesthesia so this time he had to deal with getting those back in wide awake...he did really well but he was not happy about it one bit. I feel so bad I keep telling him it's almost over, no more bad stuff, and then I feel like a big liar when he ends up needing something else that's going to hurt!

Yesterday he took a few bites of applesauce, yogurt and had some chocolate milk. He is still mainly being fed through the feeding tube though(which goes through his nose). We are working closely with a speech therapist with eating and swallowing etc. Because hunters stent in his new airway goes through his vocal cords which are normally closed while you eat, eating and swallowing feels different for him now. Also the vocal cords help keep food out of your airway, so we want to make sure he is eating slowly and safely. There is another upper part of your mouth( can't think of what's it's called right now) that is the main part that closes off the airway and allows food to go down to the stomach but the vocal cords are kind of a second protection point from keeping food out of the airway. Hunter wont have that until the stent is removed. At that point his vocal cords can move normally. Before we can leave the hospital they want to make sure Hunter can safely eat. Otherwise he would go home with his feeding tube..I hope we don't have to do that. The good thing is you can tell he wants to eat and drink, it's just hard for him right now, but he is definitely trying.

The doctors also changed his ties around his neck today and cleaned up his incisions. They look really good they said and are healing up nicely.

We do have a date for the stent removal...June 4th! So not too terribly far away! Very happy about that. Right now I'm just very nervous how we are going to get through the next few weeks with eating..grrrr I hate not knowing.

I will update again tomorrow...


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