speaking valve

Friday we had some appointments in Madison. We were suppose to see urology and pulmonary. We only made it to our pulmonary one unfortunately, although I'm not sad about because that is the more important one. Sol needed to just be checked over to see how growth and everything is going for him. They made no changes at all. No feed changes, no equipment changes, everything is going overall well for him so we had no need to change anything. Yay! Also he is doing well overall so we dont need to do another pulmonary appointment until 2 months from now instead of every month. Yay!

but the big thing at his appointment was having a speech therapist come take a look at him and decide if he would he able to try the speaking valve. She didn't even really look at him she just brought the valve and they decided to just try it. I was terrrrrified. They told us lua was always way to weak to try it, I doubt that now, she seemed to be a little stronger breather than sol is so now I'm guessing she would have been able to try the valve as well. Anyway, we also had a different speech therapist look ag him and she didn't feel like he would be able to do the valve yet. So I was nervous!! The way the valve works is you breathe the air in normally but it doesn't allow air to come out the trach, it pushes it up through the mouth. It is more work to do this.
But they felt it was fine to try it. He was on his pulse ox to watch his oxygen and heart rate and had him in his best position for him to push out saliva. He cant have a ton of saliva in his throat other wise he can't move the air out of his mouth easily. They popped it on and he started working hard and trying to figure out how to exhale, but in just a few seconds he figured it out and started talking! He looooved it! He smiled and looked so proud that he could hear his own voice. I kept asking if we should take it off, because he did have to breathe differently and a little harder, but they said no just leave him because he was sitting at 100% for his oxygen and normal heart rate. So we let him go for awhile and he babbled away!
since he passed the test we were able to take the valve home with us and we are allowed to try it 2x a day for 5 mins. Then next week if we have had no issues we can do 3x a day and keep moving up as long as he is tolerating. It is amazing and so exciting!
we used it last night when we got home and he did amazing again! It blows me away. This morning we did it and he wasn't 100% happy with it. It took him a little longer to figure it out but at the end of 5mins he wasn't very happy... If he is getting sleepy this valve is too hard for him I think. So we will keep working on it and see where we go from here. It is extremely exciting. He has less secretions while on it because he is pushing the saliva out instead of down so we dont end up suctioning him a lot when he is using it. We feel almost like we are hitting normal baby life! Like there is such a thing! But you can't imagine how great it is to hear your baby's voice! We even heard a giggle last night. We hear him when he is on the vent but this is him doing it all on his own. Just amazing. You really thank technology for how far we have come to give us a device like this that a baby can use so baby and parents can hear them. Just amazing!