Today Blair is doing well! He is urinating on his own – so no more catheter! (I am sure that he is thanking God for that one!)
His lung x-ray came back with nothing abnormal for someone in his condition so they downsized his tracheotomy tube to a 4 at 8:00 am this morning. Hopefully they will be able to put the valve on it so they can begin speech therapy with him and work on talking (although I doubt he will have any problem talking). The speech therapists are working on his swallowing currently – they call it ‘pleasure feeding’ where they give him a tiny bite of something that tastes really good (like chocolate or something) and they assess his swallowing. He needs to be able to swallow and have a gag reflex in order to remove the tube completely.
They have ordered a leg brace for his left leg because they believe he tore a ligament in his knee (or strained the ligament) so it is hard / painful for him to put weight on it. Once this comes in they will begin having him walk.
Seems like everything is moving along like it should. Please pray for clear communication from the nursing staff (as some of them are not so clear or informative at all - but some are amazingly helpful) and for Blair to have a gag reflex. Without that they would be concerned about him potentially choking so they wouldn’t remove the tube – which wouldn’t allow him to eat real food! That would be very disappointing to him!
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