The Swallow Study was Today

Okay, okay, so I am slacking on the blog still. Sorry! I updated about Sean's swallow study on Facebook, but thought I should post it here for those that wanted an update.

They had 2 radiology drs in the room doing the study, as well as a speech therapist and 2 lab techs. Sean was very comfortable with them and did great. The team was super friendly and comfortable with kids, had lots of toys in the room to distract the kiddos. Sean was in love with the 2 talking Scooby Doo stuffed dogs and the Tickle Me Elmo. They even blew bubbles for him and he was just charmed! I got him to take 3 swallows of the liquid and 3 bites of the barium pudding. They added strawberry flavoring to it and I told him the pudding stuff was yogurt. :P He refused to try the barium coated graham cracker (yuck!) but they thought that was fine.

The drs said that they got good views and did not see any signs of aspiration, but would look thru the scans and write up reports for my dr. They said a Ped GI dr might ask for further testing, but they didn't see anything that looked concerning. It was just a modified barium swallow study so it didn't look for how things travel to his tummy, etc. In order to do that, they'd have to put an NG tube in him since he'd have to consume a lot more barium. So for now, this is the info we have. I have to get a referral to a GI dr and go from there.

The Speech Therapist said that we should see a ped GI and see if he improves after a month of Prevacid. They mentioned that there is one Ped GI doctor in Wichita, otherwise we could go to Children's in KC or see a group in OKC. She didn't have orders to do a feeding evaluation, but said we'd be welcome to come back again if our doctor wants that done. She said that it would be best to see a GI specialist first to see what he'd want to do. She also feels that Sean's feeding issue are based in physiological causes, probably reflux. We talked about how his therapy has been going at school and what options are available where we live.

After all that, we went to the hospital cafeteria and had soul food for lunch (fried catfish, cornbread, greens and cabbage.) Sean finally got to eat and was so happy to see his food. :)