OH YET ANOTHER OBSTACLE.....

What a day! Things went fairly smoothly most of the day. Cooper is still doing very well even with the slight changes they made this morning. The Occupational Therapist (OT) came in for a consult on the feedings. After a short discussion with her she said we needed NT to come down and take a look at his vocal cords. They arrived about 7:30pm and determined that Cooper has a paralyzed right vocal cord. This happens because of the cannulas that were in for the ECMO. He may regain some movement in the vocal cord but it is unlikely. The long term outcome of this is not all that bad. He may have a somewhat raspier voice but for the most part his left vocal cord will compensate for the loss of the right. The short term implications however are more drastic. I do not fully grasp the whole idea yet but apparently your vocal cords move when you swallow and because Cooper's right vocal cord does not move properly it can let liquids move into the lungs instead of down the throat as they should. This basically means Cooper will have to learn to eat all over again. We have not met with the doctors or the OT again since we found out his vocal cord was paralyzed so I do not know what the next step will be. They just had X-ray up to take a look at his lungs to make sure that there is not fluid in them from our previous attempts to feed him. If there is this can develop into pneumonia and again be a very serious problem. We should have the results of the X-ray shortly. We Will not know anything further until the doctors round in the morning.

Surprisingly I am not that upset about the vocal cord. At this stage of the game I look much more at the long term affect to Cooper and long term he will not be that affected unless he wanted to be an opera singer. In which case, I will consider this a blessing :). The immediate is the realization that we will probably go home with a feeding tube and will have to hassle with that for awhile. We had it last time for 1 week and it was extremely time consuming. However, I have several questions considering Cooper should be eating some solids by this time anyway and not sure how all of this will play out.

I am still wishfully hoping that we will go to the floor tomorrow but not sure how this will affect everything. I am not going running in the morning because I do not want to miss anything. Therefore, I will get the blog updated as soon as I know more in the morning. Please keep praying for our little boy as his struggle to recovery is not over yet. Please also remember all of those here. We have seen some pretty devastating admits in the last couple of days including one last night that did not even make it to morning and yet another I understand to be very critical. The things most of us only hear about on the news are our next door neighbors right now and need all the prayers they can get. Also remember little Granton who's treatment was complete yesterday. He is hanging in there like a champion and they should know by this weekend if his little body will accept what it has been given.

****Thanks for the wonderful visit Amy. You make time go by so much quicker and I love getting to see you!***