Update on Piper!

We have had many people ask us how Piper is doing! We had four days to be home as a family of seven. Overall, it went pretty well considering I am still exhausted and I am sure Erik is just as tired.

Piper came home on Thursday afternoon! Erik was so happy to finally be out of the hospital! He really did all the work with this hospital stay! He is such a wonderful father to our children! Piper did really well healing from her open heart surgery. We just have to be careful that no one knocks her over to prevent damage to her chest. We have to be careful when we pick her up so we don't hurt her incision. We have to pick her up from her bottom. She We certainly don't want to end up back in the hospital!

The only really problem we have now is her swallowing issue! Piper has always had a cough every time she drank a liquid. She was okay with some liquids, but most of the time she would cough when she drank something. We were always concerned about this and brought up our concerns to every doctor we met with about Piper. We had an upper GI study done as well as an esophagram, but nothing showed up that would explain what was causing this problem. While Piper was in the hospital, she had a swallowing study done. We found out she had vocal fold paresis. That basically means that her vocal fold is not closing all the way and thin liquids are going into her lungs instead of down her throat. We were told that from the swallowing study she can swallow honey like consistency liquids with no problems. We were told that about 10% of any thin liquid she is drinking is going to her lungs. The problem with that is the fluid in her lungs can cause pneumonia and she could end up back into the hospital. We were given something called thick it to add to her liquids. However, she won't drink it. So, Erik pretty much used a syringe to feed her all liquids for the past four days. Tomorrow I am on my own. I hope it all goes well!