Eating with Asher

If you don't follow me on Facebook, then you missed the excitement that happened on Monday. I had just given the big kids left-over Easter dinner, but Asher had that for lunch so I gave him spaghetti-O's instead. (since that's highly nutritious!). I always chop up the meatballs because..well...Asher doesn't chew. At all. Instead he mashes stuff up into his very high palace or just swallows it whole.

So the kids are eating and I am not paying attention. I turned around to see Asher with his head turned extremely far to one side, his jaw jutting out, and his color turning a not-so-nice shade of gray. "He's choking!" I hollered to Dean.

I did a finger sweep but there was nothing.

He was moving a little bit of air through his nose but none through is mouth so I didn't want to do anything else in case I caused whatever it was to block his airway completely. I watched him for a minute. He was trying to gag but all that did was cause spaghetti-O's and TONS of mucus to shoot out his nose. His color continued to get worse. Although he was moving air, he wasn't moving enough air. I called 911. I think Dean thought there wasn't really a problem until I decided to call for help.

Right about the time the paramedics arrived, Asher vomited up a whole meatball. Being about 1 inch in diameter they are perfect choking size.  It took about 15 minutes for his color to go back to normal, but the paramedics declared him "good", though they suggested bringing him to the ER to be evaluated. We were in and out of the ER in an hour! (that is record time folks!)

Two days later Asher started sneezing copious amounts of thick green snot, and whenever he eats he's sounding really "junky" in the back of his throat. I brought him to the doctor and it seems he has some infection due to the spaghetti-O's getting stuck up there. Poor kid!

Anyway, Asher is making slow-but-steady progress in the area of eating. We can now get initial bites and sometimes he'll even follow with one or two chews. We're still ages away from him being able to eat food that does not require chewing. Right now we're sticking to dissolvable foods like corn puffs, cheetoes, etc. All healthy stuff, to be sure! I have a goal in my head of having Asher on regular foods by September when he starts 1st grade. It's a lofty goal, and probably way off base, but yesterday he was doing particularly well with some corn puffs! He takes initial bites now, and sometimes one or two chews, then he's back to just mashing it against his palate. Still, this is progress! (these are "dissolvable" corn puffs, which dissolve to almost nothing in your mouth)