So, I had my appointment yesterday with a speech pathologist. I was extremely nervous because in the 20+ years that I have had MS, I have NEVER had an appointment with a speech pathologist. I tallied up the amount of doctors I have seen in my mind once and I think I have seen a total of 20 different doctors.
The nurse who came to get us was very kind and I found out that I am “Birthday twins” with her son who is 20 and the speech pathologist was a kind young woman and she will be the speech pathologist I see from now on in Dearborn. We will call on Monday to set up appointments for me.
She explained to me what the test was going to be like and I maneuvered in my chair to the proper place between the x-ray plates and facing a glass window. A doctor came in and sat at the desk that was on the other side of the window. I had brought my own mugs because holding cups is difficult for me and I did not want to spill things.
She told me that I would be drinking barium and that barium, “Is not the worst thing in the world you will taste but it is not good!” After all the tests we did, I believe her! I was so nervous about the test that as things started, she had me take my mask off and smile. She commented on my nice smile and all I could say was, “Thank you.” I couldn’t even make the standard joke of my Dad paying a lot of money for it!
Before the test started she had me open my mouth, say, “Ah,” stick my tongue out and push my tongue against the inside of my cheek against her finger. She also had me lick my lips in a circle first going one way and then the other way. That was difficult too!
After I drank the NOT good tasting barium, she spread it in pudding form on a graham cracker and had me chew that. When the testing was finished, she had my Mom come back into the room and she showed me the video of me swallowing. My Mom was extremely fascinated because it was kind of cool! Too bad that barium tasted gross!
So, in sum, we talked about getting a prescription for protein shakes because they are so expensive but she’s not the one to prescribe it but she agreed. She told me to stick with the soft foods that I have been eating because as I said before, proteins shakes for breakfast and for lunch, “And a sensible dinner.” (Slim fast commercial from the 80s). I got the test results back today on my chart and the test results are: “Normal.”
But, let me tell you that there is NOTHING that feels normal about me chewing food and swallowing these days. We will see how my appointments for the speech pathologist will work. The test also said that I have an, “Oral delay” but as she described to my Mom and me as we watched the x-ray video that she could tell it was, “Effortful.” I had never heard that one before but it’s kind of like the first time I heard the priest say, “Worthily” that I never thought was a word until I heard a different priest also saying that word!
Looks like EVEN more appointments are in my future!
