Visiting the ENT

Wednesday we took Joshua to the Ear Nose and Throat doctor. He was great. He was warm and friendly and worked to gain Joshua's trust too. When the doctor came in he could tell immediatley that Joshua is a mouth breather and is highly congested. He checked his tonsils and his ears and didn't see any problems. The doctor said that we needed to put a scope down Joshua's nose to see if he had a Choanal Atresia or enlarged Adenoids. Brian had to hold Joshua through the procedure which took less than a minute. The doctor checked both sides of his nose and from the scope going up his nose and Joshua screaming in protest a ton of snot came running out of his nose. It must have emptied him out because it was several hours before his runny nose came back in full force.

The doctor found that Joshua did not have a choanal atresia and he said that that was really good because most kids that have one also usually have all sorts of other problems like heart defects. But Joshua does have giantic adenoids. The doctor said that he was impressed that the nurses in the hospital were ever able to get the NG tube down the left side of his nose because he had a hard time with the scope which is smaller than the NG tube. I told the doctor about our nursing struggles and he said that we did really good alot of babies with this problem can have "failure to thrive". The doctor said that Joshua does have a safe airway though. He said the only real way to relieve the symptoms is to remove the adenoids.

The doctor told us that the adenoids are not neccessary and actually go away by the teenage years. He said that the surgery is not invassive and requires no cutting or bleeding. He just goes in through the nose or mouth (I am not sure which one, but my guess is nose) and basically lasars it off. The whole procedure takes around 7 minutes. He also said that it is a good time to do it because being under anethesia is not great for a baby under 1 year old, but once they reach a year age it is much safer. The surgery also requires a fairly low level of anethesia and no paralysis and Joshua will be able to breath on his own. The post-op is fairly low key the biggest and most common symptom is the patient is usually stuffy and has a rough voice. Joshua isn't talking much yet so the voice isn't a big issue and Joshua is already stuffy anyway.

Brian and I feel good about the surgery and will be scheduling it when we get a couple other things figured out. I am actually kind of excited to get it done. It will be nice to not have him drench through his clothes with his drool or have him have to wear a bib all the time. It will also be nice to not have to worry about his runny nose all the time. I have recently dug out his spit up rags and have started using them as snot rags because he was going through so many kleenexs. (I only use the rag for a day or less before I put it in the laundry). Joshua should get sick less often which is a nice idea too.