Tomorrow is the day… the day of Ava’s feeding study which I’m so nervous about. For this feeding study they will give her a bottle of sugar-water and barium and take an x-ray video of her swallowing while taking the bottle. This will show them whether or not her vocal cords have healed sufficiently for her to be able to drink thin fluids and not aspirate.
If the test shows that she is swallowing properly then that will allow her to start to learn how to breastfeed and she would also be able to start taking my milk from a bottle – yahoo! And hopefully that would lead to eventually getting rid of the ng tube!!!
And if her vocal cords haven’t healed and she still needs thicker fluids, well, I don’t know what we will do. The hospital won’t thicken breast-milk because they have deemed the thickener needed to do it ’unsafe’ and so that leaves formula that has to be thicken with rice cereal – and the combination of those two hurt Ava’s tummy so much and just make her want to throw up.
So please please pray that Ava’s vocal cords will have healed. I so need to trust God with this and not stress because I know how I will feel if the news isn’t good. So I’m not going to worry, I’m just going to trust a faithful God and know that He he will carry us through whatever the results may be.
And talking about removing her ng tube, the other day when we replaced it, I snapped some pics of Ava without it…
Oh my beautiful girl!!! I just want that darn tube gone for good… oh Lord, please give this mamma patience!!!
So now to change the subject, we’ve been in Ward 4D now for a month! And as I was walking back to the hospital last night after having dinner with Jay and the kids, I was kinda shaking my head at how adaptable us human’s really are. It almost seems a bit normal now to be here and live at the hospital. The nurses and other people here are even starting to feel like family, except others keep getting better and leaving, while we are still here, which is a drag.
I do truly miss living with my own family, and I can’t wait for us to get home, but I guess knowing that this whole hospital stay is just a short moment in time compared to all eternity is really helping to get us through. And instead of focusing on how less than ideal the situation is right now for our family to be separated we just try to keep focusing on that point in the future when we can look back and say, “Hey – remember how God so faithfully got us through all those months at Sick Kids?” Thankfully the days just fly along here and its crazy that Jason and I came to Toronto December 3rd to have Ava, two months ago. So much has happened since then that I feel like I’ve lost all sense of time.
So please pray again for tomorrow. I am going to need a huge dose of God’s grace to sustain me if the news isn’t good – but again – her vocal cords have to eventually heal, but patience can be difficult when you feel you’ve already been waiting for such a long time.
I love how I can share all this on my blog and know that through it we receive so much encouragement. Thank-you all so much for sticking with us and travelling this journey with us!!
