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Thursday, March 04, 2004

Swallowing Test

Don just called me. He's on his way up to Kirksville today, so he won't be near a computer, but he was very excited because Linda passed her swallowing test today with flying colors! They were the colors of pudding and applesauce, thin liquids and thick.

It's not that it was easy, exactly, but she did fabulously.

This is important and significant because it means she can have pepsi. And ice cream. Coffee. All the things that make life worth living.

She was drinking pepsi with thickener when Don left. I had to ask him to repeat that about three times, and then, finally, to unpack it for me: They add a thickener like a gelatin to the pepsi to make it easier to... eat.

She was just grinning away, thrilled, when he left. He wants to bring her a Milky Way (a coffee drink from Java Company, the local coffee shop) tomorrow, and add a ton of thickener.

Linda will get yogurt this afternoon during speech therapy, but Don doesn't think the nurses will get to feed her, so she'll have to wait til tomorrow for the good stuff.

Don said the speech therapist had been very nervous that Linda wasn't ready, wouldn't pass (no big deal, they try again next week), but Don practiced and practiced with her, and she aced it.

Now, let me tell you, it strikes Don and I both as absolutely hilarious that we are talking about things like practicing for swallowing tests. And I will leave to your imaginations the scandalous conversations we have had regarding "practicing," "swallowing," and "tests." They are not fit for blog consumption, but satisfy yourselves that if we ever want to write the script for "Linda, the NC-17 Movie," we can.