ENT

Logan and I went to the Ear, Nose, and Throat Doctor today. Logan continues to aspirate and has breathing troubles constantly. It was definitely time to be seen again by the ENT. We saw him and he immediately noted Logan's breathing difficulties. Right before the ENT came into the room, Logan aspirated, so when the doctor some him he sounded like his gunky little self. The doctor wants to do a laryngoscopy and bronchoscopy on friday to look down into his airway and lungs. He wants to check his vocal cords specifically to look for problems with coordination of them. He wants to look at the structure of the airway to look at his laryngomalacia (floppy airway that easily collapses). Then he is going to do the bronchoscopy which will look into Logan's lungs. He is planning to take cultures of the fluid to see if he is growing any nasty junk down there.

He continued to remind me that this is a diagnostic test and that he will not be performing any procedures to fix Logan. After he does the scopes we will come up with a plan of action for Logan. He definitely spoke up quickly about how important it is to intervene. He said that Logan cannot continue this way, meaning he can't continue to aspirate this much. When he went to put the tongue depressor into Logan's mouth, Logan wouldn't open up. When he finally got it in he said, "he really doesn't have a gag reflex". I have known this for some time! He talked about some possible treatments to intervene including removal of glands that produce saliva and the most severe would be a tracheostomy (inserting a tube into his trachea thru the neck where he would breathe from). The tracheostomy would be a last resort and he said it wasn't something he wanted to do.

His procedure will be on Friday. Hopefully by Monday we will have an idea of what is going on in his little body. I am so glad the doctor wants to aggressively search for the root of the problem. It feels like we have been pushed from place to place with no real answers. It is very evident there is a problem! It is so hard to be a nurse and be trained that airway and breathing are the first parts of an assessment and have multiple doctors poo-poo it (minus the pulmonologist!). So onward we go. Continuing on the quest that Logan leads us down. He is such a little miracle that teaches me life lessons every day.