Growing up in the hospital.

This is a picture from Greyson’s last day in the hospital. I don’t know but to me he looks like he is getting too used to the place!
We went to see Greyson’s surgeon yesterday for a checkup. He is encouraged by Greyson’s breathing and feels at this point the threat of having to put another tracheotomy tube back in is very minimal. This is good news and we are praising God for Greyson’s breathing!
On the down side when we looked at his vocal cords they are still both paralyzed. There may be some slight movement on the right side, but the left is still not moving at all. It can take up to six months to a year for the nerve function to return, if they are going to return on their own. Of course we will keep praying that they come back quickly, and God can heal in an instant! We will continue to wait it out for a couple more months to see if their function returns. At that point if they are still paralyzed we may do some temporary injections which will move his cords closer together and should allow him to make some vocal noise. This will also protect his airway for him to eat and drink.
On that note the Dr. ordered a swallow study to see what is happening when Greyson swallows. If he is able to swallow without it going down his airway we will be allowed to let Greyson eat again. This would be great as Greyson REALLY wants food these days!! We are hoping to get the swallow study done pretty soon as he is just attacking us when he we have food. We broke down and gave him some “tastes” just because he has been so insistent and we don’t want to completely discourage this since we have worked so hard to get him to want food. The tastes have really just been a touch of flavor and not substance so we felt pretty comfortable with letting him do that.
Tomorrow Stacy and I are meeting with the school district to talk about enrolling Greyson in school. He can begin school a week from tomorrow, since he can start as soon as he turns 3, which is this coming Saturday!! (Although we are probably going to wait till October 1 to start him, that way he can start slow, or maybe so we can start slow!)
Aside from all this he continues to get back to himself. He still gets frustrated at times because he can’t talk. He does make some noise at times, but we learned yesterday this is from other tissue not his vocal cords. Basically he pushes really hard and closes off other tissue (his false vocal cords) and is able to generate a real raspy sounding “voice”. While he doesn’t like it he can take around 10 steps in a row if we push him. Even though he doesn’t push himself in that way you can definitely see a difference in how he is using his walker. I think he is starting to realize that it is easier to just walk than to walk and drag the walker with him. The bad thing is he also realizes he doesn’t fall well and is unwilling to give up a safety net that keeps him from falling and cracking his head. Maybe we need to get him a cane to use next? Or a helmet…..