Well, today has been a small roller coaster. The doctors heard Landon's breathing today and became more concerned than they had been. So, they called the on-call ENT to come and check his vocal chords. It turns out that his left vocal chord is not functioning. This is a side effect from the surgery. When his aorta was clamped, the vocal chord nerve also got clamped. During the surgery, the nerve was stretched and has not returned to the functionality that it should have. This is a common side effect of the surgery and the vocal chord will most likely return to normal. It can take as little as a month or as long as six months. On Monday, Landon will undergo a test to check to see if the vocal chord is affecting his ability to eat. During eating, the vocal chords close off the esophagus, ensuring that food does not get into the lungs. This test will see if the chord is closing off the esophagus or not. Since Landon has not shown symptoms of this over the past week and a half, the doctors are thinking that the chord is not affecting his eating, but they have to rule everything out. So, we will not be able to come home on Monday like we were hoping.
Landon has had a good day of eating though. Since we have started his new feeding plan, his oral intake has dropped, but he is gaining weight. Weight gain is our ultimate goal and that is what will get us home. He is slowly working his way back up to taking in more orally. Also, his spitting up is decreasing.
We are still trying to stay positive about everything. We are thankful that we have had some great nurses to work with who really care about Landon and give him great care. Some of them even just stop in to see him if they are not assigned to him! He is a charmer already!
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