The connection between the two? Well, our beautiful kids were not in school.
School is the reason why Wyatt becomes sick. My husband, myself and Wyatt's pediatrician are convinced that attending school is THE reason why Wyatt is in and out of CHEO at a bi-weekly rate. If you could check our admissions, you would see a clear pattern, every two weeks we're in, and the following two weeks, we're out. Each virus/bacterial infection would line up with Aila's colds caught from her school.
Needless to say, the last nine weeks have been great. No one was sick in the house, it was wonderful not having to fight off cold after cold after cold... but here we are again.
The odd thing is, my children didn't start school until this past Wednesday, and Wyatt was admitted for respiratory distress on Thursday . So, to catch a cold that quickly - without his brother or sister showing any visible signs; seemed unlikely. Dr. Issa and I both thought it was aspirated pneumonia, as I was teaching Wyatt how to eat the week before. His penchant for putting things into his mouth has become strong and I felt, why not control the situation, by allowing him to taste real food, rather than rocks off the ground? Maybe he'd be less likely to put said objects into his mouth...
Wyatt had the usual tests done, blood, stool, and chest xray. I was expecting a positive for pneumonia. High grade fever, his O2 sats were super low, he had mucus coming out of the wazoo. Surprisingly enough, his chest xray came out clean. It looked 'beautiful' according to Dr. Issa.
So, what was wrong with Wyatt?
Dr. Issa felt that it was mix of a bacterial infection with a virus, (ear infection), and that we came in at the right time. All of Wyatt's symptoms started rearing their ugly head in the middle of the night on Wednesday, and by Thursday, at 6 pm, we were being admitted to CHEO. Whatever my baby has, it hit him like a ton of bricks.
Wyatt has since been discharged, and is happily, crawling around the house. He has extra mucous, but with our nurse on hand, things are more manageable now. The kids are in school, which always helps as well!
So, back to the dangers of teaching Wyatt to eat. One, is obviously aspirated pneumonia. Two, is choking and three being that he loses his airway completely. As Wyatt's mom, I am convinced he swallows. Now, even more-so. If we want to open Wyatt's mouth up with a masseter release (a surgeon takes a knife and cuts the masseter muscles), we have to make sure Wyatt can swallow. We cannot have his mouth wide open, and him be able to stick whatever object he wants into his mouth. That is far too dangerous.
As of two weeks ago, Wyatt has been eating lunch and supper with us. Usually, I place some puréed food in front of him, and he plays with it, coats his hands (face, hair, neck, belly, et al.), and tries to shove the food into his mouth. This didn't really work for him, as he just wasn't getting a substantial-enough amount into his mouth to allow him to feel the food on his tongue, and then proceed to swallow it. What I have done is place a minute amount of food, say, the size of two peas, on a very slender, malleable baby spoon, and lightly rest it on his bottom lip. Wyatt proceeds to use his top lip to suck the food into his mouth, and voilà, he swallows his food. At first, I was venting him to see if there was any food that had made it into his gut, and lo and behold, there it was! Plus, a ton of air. Learning to swallow is difficult, and swallowing air was a newbie mistake. Wyatt doesn't need venting now, because he isn't swallowing air with his food, and he is eating more and more every day.
With that said, he is going to be getting a Feeding Study, which will allow us to actually watch his food go into his mouth, down his esophagus, and into his stomach, simply by adding some Barium to his pureed food. I'm hoping to have to the Feeding Study completed by November.
Some of you may be asking yourself, why is Wyatt swallowing? I for one believe it's from his adjustments with his Chiropractor, Dr. Craig Hazel, from Synergy Wellness. Dr. Hazel told us we should start seeing some changes with Wyatt's mouth movements within three to six months, and August brings us to the three month mark with him. So, I would like to believe the adjustments are working. On the other hand, one can only guess that it has something to do with Wyatt's physical and cognitive development. He LOVES to put food in his mouth, and wants to be part of the eating routine at our dinner table.
Next Blog: (and we're kind of going back wards in time here) Emergency Intubation
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