Happy New Year everyone! We celebrated at home on Monday with a family stomach bug ;( No fun all! Thankfully it was a quick 12 hour thing and we were back to feeling better by New Years Day, so we could bleach everything in the house and get it back in order! LOL.
Apparently every sickness you can think of is going around here is mass quantities, with record wait times at all the Urgent Cares and ERs, it even made the news. We are thankful we didn't get anything worse, so we didn't have to be a number at one of those places.
Liam had 2 follow up appointments Friday, which made for a long morning at our favorite city, Medical City Hospital. First was a follow-up by his ENT, which we had not seen since June of 2010, yep a long time! But Liam had not had any new problems with this area, so we never needed to. The pulmonologist requested we follow-up on the status of his vocal chord and check his airway again just to be sure there wasn't anything else contributing to his allergy / cold-like symptoms he gets each winter. ENT did a scope of his airway and said everything still looked the same, the right vocal chord still has no movement and is in a partially closed; same position as it was 2 years ago. He did say this is the reason sometimes he sounds "wheezy" even though his lungs are clear. This made me feel better about the usual symptoms he has during this time of year and answered the question of why his breathing and cough can sound worse than it actually is. It was also good to get another closure diagnosis on the vocal chord. We knew during his 2nd surgery it was most likely paralyzed for good, and it's not good that it's paralyzed obviously, but it is good to know the status. The ENT said if you were to have one paralyzed, you would want it exactly how Liam's is positioned. He should have minimal speech issues, but possible breathing issues if they ever start to swell worse than they do with a normal cold. Just a long term thing we'll have to deal with I guess.
The next appointment was his Pulmonology follow-up. His breathing and lungs were clear and they told us we could stop doing nebulizer treatments and only continue his Qvar steroid inhaler. The inhaler is new for us, Liam has always had nebulizer treatments, but since he is older, they have a special mask and tube that fit on an inhaler that he can breathe off of to get the medicine. I love it because it takes only a few seconds, as opposed to the nebulizer which can take anywhere from 5-10 minutes, not to mention the large compressor you have to lug around! So mommy was happy to hear no more nebbys!! We continue with the inhaler for another 4 months, then re-evaluate to see of he needs to continue through the spring/summer.
So all in all, very good reports. It's nice to be on the other side of being so fragile when he was little. It seems each year he handles the sickies better and better. He does start school back this week and will be going 2 days a week as opposed to only one day a week last year....I am a little nervous he may pick up more illnesses, but am confident that he is in good shape to be able to handle them. I just have to make sure I don't catch everything as I won't be able to self medicate!
We have a couple more appointments coming up for him, GI is at the end of January and Cardiology (can't believe it's almost been 6 months since his last visit!) will be beginning of February. I, too, have a couple appointments, sonogram on the 16th and my first midwife appointment on the 23rd (more on that decision later!). I am praying all of our appointments have good news!!
On another note, a heart mom friend has asked for our help to spread CHD Awareness on PBS! Their family is featured in a film on CHD's called Heart of the Matter and PBS stations across the nation are airing it, but not all of them. She is asking that we request they show the film on our local stations. This is so important, as it will help open people's eyes to CHD's and help bring in more funding for CHD research. Please click HERE to visit her page for more details! Thanks friends!!
No comments :
Post a Comment
Comments