Luke's 3rd CA dilation

Luke had his 3rd CA dilation last Friday. Everything went fine, but Dr. Hill is still not sure how long it is going to take to get Luke's nose open enough to get the trach out. He wants to dilate again in July (the 25th) and see where we are then. The good news is that he is finally going to let Luke try a PMV - passy-muir valve or speaking valve. This is an attachment for the end of the trach that lets air go in through the trach, but out through the mouth and nose. This means air passes the vocal cords, so making sound is possible. If Luke is able to do this then we would move on to capping and then decannulation. It can take quite a bit of adjustment to get used to the PMV, so we will have to start very slowly at first.