Da, Da, Da, Da, Da...

I don't know if I mentioned it before, but Luke has been making a lot more noise lately, even without his PMV. And now when you put his PMV on he usually starts to make sounds right away. His favorite seems to be da, da, da... I took a few videos in the hospital of him making sounds. He even seemed to be queing sounds from me sometimes. So we are going to keep working on that. I apologize for the general shakiness of the video. Luke has started reaching for the camera anytime I get it near him - how wonderfully typical!



The day Luke had his swallow study, he also wore the PMV for the speech therapist. And it was an awful day all around, because he did terribly with the PMV. He did breathe through his mouth, but it was a real strain and he cried. The speech therapist thought there was some kind of obstruction between the trach and Luke's mouth, and that he should not really wear the PMV much if at all. And to be fair to us, I have never left the PMV on when he has had that kind of reaction, which has not been very often. But since that day we have not been using the PMV much. So when Luke was in the hospital last week I took advantage of the fact that he had an oxygen saturation and heart rate monitor to see how he responded physically to the PMV. He didn't cry or get upset or even seem to mind at all that he had the PMV on - in short, nothing like the day of the swallow study. Luke had the PMV on for over an hour and he did great. His sats. stayed between 98 and 100 and his heart rate was in the 120's. It gives me more confidence to know that I can tell when he is distressed and can remove the PMV. But there are definitely times when he does well with it and he should keep using it.