How Many Therapies Really Exist?

It has been a busy couple of weeks with Nathan and visiting various doctors and such. He will be starting speech therapy soon to get him caught up to age. Thankfully he is test at or above age level for comprehension....he's just being stubborn about speaking.

He also had a swallow study done last week which was actually pretty cool because we could see via x-ray him chewing and swallowing various foods and liquids. It was determined that Nathan might be aspirating some liquid into his lungs when he drinks which could be causing all his respiratory issues. So, we have begun swallow therapy. Basically, we have to thicken everything he drinks for the next three-six months to see if his health improves and his lungs heal. He doesn't seem bothered by it at all.....in fact, he loves the fact that he gets so many tasty milk/yogurt smoothies and juice/applesauce smoothies. Probably the weirdest part is the gel we have to put in plain cups of water or milk. It makes the liquid all weird and kind of gooey looking.

This is a picture from early Nov. before all the therapy stuff started. He was fixated on watching the straw while he drank out of my cup. Now he has to work to hard to drink his extra thick liquids to make funny faces.