A new record

I worked from home today, which allowed me to get up with Namine and let Jessica sleep in. When I gave Namine her breakfast around 9:30, she asked me to first put her palatal prosthetic in. Wait, what? Yes, that’s right. She was so enthusiastic about it that she wanted to eat breakfast while wearing…

I worked from home today, which allowed me to get up with Namine and let Jessica sleep in. When I gave Namine her breakfast around 9:30, she asked me to first put her palatal prosthetic in. Wait, what? Yes, that’s right. She was so enthusiastic about it that she wanted to eat breakfast while wearing it.

Putting the prosthetic in is still kind of touch-and-go, at least for me. Namine threw up after I put it in, but it was almost solely mucus. She’s got allergies just like we do, and even drinking some water in the morning doesn’t always make it better.

After that, though, she was fine. She didn’t eat all of her breakfast, but that had nothing to do with her prosthetic. Sometimes she only wants a little to eat for breakfast. But of what she did eat, she received no trouble. Gone are the times (how short a time ago!) when we would have to encourage her merely to swallow, when she would need supervision just to make sure she wasn’t drooling or choking on her own saliva. Gone are the times when drinking from a cup (but not with a spoon, even that was too much) or even talking would trigger a coughing fit. Her speech is much more understandable now, now that she’s not afraid to let her tongue touch the prosthetic. And her speech is more understandable now, whether or not I’d like to admit it.[1]

Namine kept her prosthetic in even longer today than she did yesterday; today she went for more than six hours. She finished breakfast kind of late, so she and Jessica (along with my mom, whom they were with for the better part of the day) didn’t eat until later in the afternoon. Namine asked to take the prosthetic out before eating lunch, and that’s fine with us. She’s making bigger strides, as it were, every day. We couldn’t be more proud.


You’d think we starve the girl.


[1] I wanted the doctors, the nurses, and the pathologists to be wrong. I wanted them all to be wrong, that Namine would need nothing, that her speech was fine just the way it is. But that’s selfish; why should I deny Namine betterment, just because I was afraid?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Related