Marcus had a few visitors come see him this week for Thanksgiving. Marcus’ two youngest sisters, Addy and Livi made it to Shirley Ryan to see the facility. They got to spend some time with one of the child life team members. She took them around the facility and showed them the different rooms and gave them a great explanation of what Marcus is doing here. Another first time SRAL visitor was Ian.  He spent the week sitting in on Marcus’ PT appointments and getting a glimpse into everything that goes on.

As a huge surprise to Team Marcus, the entire Chicago Blackhawks team visited the kids here at Shirley Ryan. It was pretty cool to see the players interacting with the kids and families. There was a hand peddle bike race between the kids and a couple players in the hallway. Players signed all kinds of paraphanalia for anyone who asked. Brandon may or may not have a signed hockey puck to add to his Chicago sports collection.

This week’s dsyphagia testing went really well. Marcus was given four different liquids in various levels of thickness. Once the liquid was given, an X-ray machine was used to monitor his swallowing to make sure the esophagus is doing its job and the liquid is going down the correct tube. All the analysis from the x-rays showed his body responded really well.

With the successful test completed, he now moves to puréed food in therapy. I asked what types of food they would give him and they said mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes and pudding. For Thanksgiving we did get some pumpkin pie for Marcus as it’s one of his favorites. Outside of therapy, family members will get training on how to give him thinner liquids. This will increase the amount of practice he gets. The more practice he gets, the closer we are to  moving him off of a full liquid diet. A lot to give thanks for, indeed.