One step forward....and one step back

Lincoln has been doing great with his feedings. Last night at 9:00, we called to talk with the nurse about how he took his first full feeding of 65 ml with thickener. We were expecting to hear that he ate about 5 or 10, but we were shocked to her that he ate the ENTIRE thing and was wanting more! We were pretty proud. The night nurse said he finished the 3 am bottle but it took him a little while because they had to wake him to eat. This morning at 9 am, he took the entire bottle! He is off to a great start. The OT was just as surprised as us and believes he will do great when we start increasing his number of bottle feeds. She will increase his bottle feeds to 5 a day on Thursday (he is currently at 4 a day). The switch from 4 to 5 is usually pretty rough because he will not be getting a break between feedings but if he can do 5 then as we add the rest it will be easier. I was feeling pretty good about the day until......

The Dr. came in around 9:30 this morning and let me know that they had been watching Lincoln for quite some time and we were concerned with a noise he was making. When he was crying or drinking, he will make a small gasping, weepy noise (hard to describe in words) that was alarming to them. She wanted him to have a scope done to check his vocal cords because she felt that he might have a paralyzed vocal cord. (At this point, I was pretty panicky but I held myself together!) My mom's cousin, Amy is an ENT so the doctor let me chose if I wanted Amy to do the scope, which I jumped at that chance! So I waited all day for the scope to happen.

Amy came about 3:30 and proceeded with the scope. She found that he does have one paralyzed vocal cord. She can not tell if it was cut from surgery (which the surgeon did tell us it could happen) or if it was just stretched. This could be part of the reason why he is aspirating into his lungs but it is not the sole reason. There is nothing that will be done at the moment to fix the problem, most of the time the problem fixes itself. If in 6 months to a year, Lincoln is still having problems then he will have injections to the cord. He will have to see a speech therapist from now until he doesn't have any more problems (we are thinking at least through early elementary age, but who knows) and his voice could be raspy, rough sounding when he starts talking (my sister says he will just always sound tough!) He will more than likely have to visit Amy for other throat issues but she is one doctor I am happy to see! This is not the worst news we could have gotten from the scope but it is a problem and we do have to deal with it. Amy said he is also more prone to upper respiratory infections so we will have to be extra careful at daycare or during the winter.

This was disappointing news but it does not seem to be affecting his feedings (at the moment) and that is what we are focusing on. The NICU doctor did tell us of an electro-stimulating procedure that we can try with Lincoln. I am really to clear on how it works but I think it create a vibrating type movement on his throat that will stimulate his sucking reflexes. Amy told us it was worth a try and the speech therapist will do the procedure and it will not hurt Lincoln and we can see if it helps.

So that has been our news today. Shane and I are ok with the news, little disappointed but thankful that it was not worse. We are off the hospital now to kiss our boy good night...but we hear he is a night baby!