Video Swallow Study – 12/8

Averi has now had 3 video swallow studies done. Every time she has one it amazes me how much we can do with modern technology. Basically she is fed barium and a continuous x-ray is taken so that the barium can be followed as it passes through her system. It is so cool.

Since I haven’t ever posted about them before I thought I’d share all 3:

5/13
Averi was initially transferred to Children’s because of choking and coughing when she tried to eat. It was thought that she had a tracheoesophageal fistula (TEF) type H, which is basically a connection between the trachea and esophagus. This is bad because any time you swallow some of it would spill into the airway.

At the time she was only one and a half weeks old and only swallowed a few times but the TEF was ruled out. She looked so tiny and helpless strapped into that chair.


9/9
During Averi’s VSD repair, the ENT did a bronchoscopy and found her laryngeal cleft (a split between the larynx and esophagus). It is similar to the TEF but at the top of the esophagus instead of in the middle.

Another swallow study was done to see if she was aspirating (getting fluid in her lungs) while trying to eat. She was aspirating, even with all the different thicknesses, and we were told to stop all oral feeding.This time my mom got a short video. I always have to watch it a couple of times, but right at the end you can see the doctor point out where some of the liquid is going the wrong way (if you can see anything in this tiny little screen).

12/8
Now that the laryngeal cleft has been repaired and Averi’s throat has healed, another study was done to see if the aspirating had stopped and if she could handle trying to drink and eat. Is it just me or is that blue chair shrinking?

She was really uncoordinated and didn’t swallow consecutively but this is sort of what swallowing is supposed to look like. Try to tell me that isn’t amazing.

She also got to try solids for the first time. Granted, this isn’t how every mother envisions her child’s first bites, but the barium rice cereal made for some fun pictures anyways. She looked like she got into some white lipstick.

She didn’t aspirate and didn’t even need the milk to be thickened so we were told that the doctor would contact us about introducing oral feeds again. What, are we actually taking a step forward?