Tomorrow at 11:30, or so it is scheduled, Rafi will go into the operating room, yet again, to undergo an esophageal dilatation. An interventional radiologist will thread a guide wire through Rafi’s G-tube, through her stomach and into her esophagus and then inflate a balloon at the narrowing passage to stretch that part of the upper GI tract. The hope is that this procedure will widen the the esophagus enough to allow Rafi to handle her own secretions, aka swallow her spit and mucus, and eat food and drink liquids. Rafi has been retching a lot lately and the fear is that she will, once again, aspirate some of this and develop another pneumonia. This procedure, if successful, will hopefully stop the retching as well. It was a bit of a fight to get us to this procedure as there are risks involved. However, from a risk/reward basis goes, it really makes sense to have the procedure. The two barium swallow tests showed a a narrowing of the esophagus so this is necessary for Rafi to undergo, whether now or later.

Other than that, Rafi is doing incredibly well. There is a lot to be excited about and we understood and expected there to be complications or hurdles in this journey. She’s now lost the rest of her hair, so she no longer looks like a little Jack Nicholson. She looks very cute bald. I’ve taken more videos of her, and her bald head, and will post some new ones in the coming days. It is really about time I did that. I will update more thoroughly tomorrow after the procedure, being that it is now midnight and we are sure to have a long day tomorrow.

Until tomorrow……….