Here's hoping...

Marissa had a salivagram done today. This is a procedure where some dye is squirted in her mouth and then, for at least an hour, sometimes an hour and a half, she lays under a scanner and a technician follows the dye through her system. By the way, she is supposed to lay as still as possible. An amazing feat for any 16 month old!! Then, if the dye doesn't move in that period of time, they ask you to come back for a second "delayed picture" to see if it moved. She had this done because several of her docs think she aspirates on her saliva. She had one of these done when she had pneumonia in December and it turned up positive for aspiration. I had always doubted that diagnosis because it was done when she was very sick and she might have a tendency to aspirate more when she is sick. I don't have any medical knowledge to back my theory up, just "mommy gut feeling". I asked her docs if she could have a false positive because of this reason and they all said "It is not likely, but..." This, of course, leads me to believe that I may be right. Needless to say however, we had to do something to protect her lungs. So, during her bronch in April, the doc injected botox into two of her salivary glands. This is to paralyze them so she produces less saliva and can handle her secretions better. It lasted for two weeks. She is having another bronch in August and I wanted to test her again beforehand to see if she aspirates and, if so, we would discuss what route to take from there.
So, any of you who know Marissa know that she has a very strong dislike and distrust for anyone wearing a lab coat and a stethoscope and for rooms that have exam tables or big machines in them. She is fine until one of the aforementioned individuals gets within about three feet of her or we lay her on a table. Of course, both happened today. As soon as I sat her on the table, she burst into tears. Then I had to lay her down and she went into hysterics. Then the technician (who was wearing a lab coat AND a stethoscope!) came near her and she cried harder. Then he squirted the dye in her mouth and she gagged and almost threw up! We swaddled her in a warm blanket and the tech went over to his desk, about 10 feet away (very much outside of Marissa's personal space). She calmed down. Then the tech had to come over and make sure she was positioned right and she went ballistic again. As you can imagine, I am thinking we'll both be lucky if we survive this! Finally the tech went back to "his space" and Marissa calmed down again. She still was acting uncomfortable and irritated so I started stroking her hair. And then God blessed us both and she fell asleep! She slept through the whole procedure! She did actually wake up about 3 minutes before it was over. It was really kind of comical to watch her crane her neck to look for the tech. Once she got him in her sights, she never looked away. She just had to make darn sure he was staying in his place!
We only had to stay for an hour and the tech said that even though it is up to the doctor to make the final determination about the results, what he saw looked good. He said from what he could see, she swallowed the dye and it went straight to her stomach. And we didn't have to go back this afternoon. So overall, the procedure I had been dreading for weeks turned out really well. We'll know the results when we visit her ENT on the 14th. I'll let you all know how that turns out when it happens.