Coburn Kids

First off, cute random pic of my kids to the left!

We had Caden’s Occupational Therapist and Speech Pathologist here today and we talked with them some about Caden’s left-sided weakness. When trying to walk with him he’s dragging his left leg, and since his thumb x-rays came back structurally okay we think his left hand and not doing a pincer grasp correctly either is all connected. If you recall, when Caden came home from the hospital he couldn’t turn his head to one side because of some tightness and weakness at the same time. This could be because of some mild cerebral palsy, and just to clarify since there is a lot of misconception about cerebral palsy I’ll give a definition: a broad term that describes a group of neurological (brain) disorders. It is a life-long condition that affects the communication between the brain and the muscles, causing a permanent state of uncoordinated movement and posturing. So it’s a catch all diagnosis that doesn’t necessarily mean any type of mental handicap (it can though) but is rather more typically related to the muscles. If this is the case we wouldn’t get a diagnosis for a few years because it would appear to be mild and we’ll just have to wait and see what he’s able to do in the future. We never really held any hope for our son to become coordinated enough for sports anyway, since his eyes and risk for retinal detachment would actually be more concerning.

We’ve got Caden’s swallow study scheduled for April 9th. His Speech Therapist is going to try and make it up there with me as well to observe it. It should be amusing, trying to force feed a child who hates drinking to swallow some chalky not-so-cleverly-disguised-liquid that is suppose to taste like a variation of cherries or bubblegum. I mean, for a regular child who could drink, it would be difficult. Add in a child who refuses for liquid to touch their lips most days… and I guess I won’t be dressing Caden in any cute/good clothes that day! If you are curious as to what a swallow study is here’s a great explanation below:

What is a swallow study?

A swallow study (also known as a videofluoroscopic swallow study) is a procedure used to test children experiencing difficulties with feeding and/or swallowing.

* The swallow study is performed in the medical imaging department with a speech-language pathologist and a radiologist. Special equipment is used to provide a “moving x-ray” of the child’s swallow.
* During the test, the child is placed in a chair next to the x-ray equipment. The speech-language pathologist feeds the child a variety of foods mixed with barium. The barium makes the food visible during the x-ray.
* The speech pathologist closely watches the x-ray to see how the food and drink move through the mouth and into the esophagus during chewing and swallowing. She also watches for any signs of aspiration (when the food or liquid goes “down the wrong way” into the airway).

With Caden we are also going to be watching his nasal area as he is still getting food coming out of his nose every time he eats.  He may have a fistula or other hole up there so that will be informative.