Amazing Madelyn Grace: Minced and mashed.

WHEW! TODAY WAS SPECTACULAR!

The trach is gone! They took Mad’s trach out this morning and she has done AMAZING with breathing on her own! She definitely feels a lot better without it and we are just so glad to finally be able to have the peace of mind that her lungs are good! It will still take some time to get them back to 100%, but for now we celebrate this incredible moment.

She also passed her swallow test! Double whammy! She still has some trouble swallowing certain liquids and most solid foods, but they have her on a diet that her speech therapist (also named Madalyn/Maddie) calls “minced and mashed” where they just chop her food up very small. She’s enjoyed finally being able to enjoy a popsicle or two or 12. She still has her feeding tube just to see how she tolerates the food intake.

She ate some of her dinner which consisted of spaghetti and carrots. She did not touch the carrots, but ate some of her pasta and also ate pudding and ice cream before she got full.

Her voice is a faint whisper, but we’re finally able to hear her voice a bit! Madelyn compared her voice to a few things today including a walrus and a Chevy. Her speech therapist will work with her over the next few days to get her vocal chords back to where they used to be.

PT came in and got her to sit in a recliner for about an hour. Mad said that walking is much harder to her than she thought it was going to be. It will become a lot easier for her to move around soon, especially without all of the tubes attached to her. She’s also been doing her hand exercises to stretch out her grafted skin.

Tomorrow marks a whole month since the fire happened. Thinking back to where Mad was a month ago and her progress of today, it makes all of the exhaustion and the stress worth it. There was a time when she was sedated and soot filled her lungs and all we could do was stare at her through the glass doors of her ICU room. I think we all as a community behind Madelyn can agree that this road has not been easy and will continue to have difficult moments, but that does not dim today’s successes and only allows us to look forward to the day when she can walk out of the hospital a healthy and happy Madelyn.

Big day! GREAT day! Talk to y’all tomorrow!

1 Thessalonians 5:16 - Rejoice always.