Too much already

I feel so bad for little Nathan. He has had way too much time in hospitals already. We went yesterday for his swallow test. He didn't take the bottle, but I got to be in there this time and it is no wonder. They put him on the table and then surround him with this cage like thing similar to an MRI so they can monitor the stuff going in. Then, they try giving him the bottle and he's crying because he's not being held and he's in this very weird contraption. I would imagine even a baby that liked bottles would not like that setup. So, they tried that for like 5 seconds and decided to tube him. They told me I might want to step out, and I did, and I'm glad I did because he screamed and screamed and it was bad enough to hear it. I would probably have visions of his poor little face all scared and upset forever if I had been in there. But they got it down and started pumping the barium in and taking pictures every 10 minutes at first and then at 30 minutes, and then at one hour. They have to see it go through his system. Once he got over the initial crying, he was his usual happy self. He laid there for the x-rays just perfectly once that cage-thing part was over. They took the tube out and sent us on our way. We might hear today what the results are. The radiologist had to interpret them and report to Nathan's pediatrician, and she will likely call us if there is something wrong.

When they told me the test might take 2 hours or more depending on how fast it went through his system, my eyes probably widened with fear because he had to be starved for 4 hours before the test, and so I was already having a bad case of boulder boob. When I stepped out for the intubation, I went to the bathroom and I had never been able to "manually express" before, but when there is enough pressure behind it, that milk just shoots out. It was really rather like milking a cow. I may have hit the wall three feet away, but man, did that feel better. :)