Keeping things Interesting!!!

Our computer is in the shop and I am doing this from the iPad. It just deleted my entire post and my brain is fried so this will be a much quicker version.

From the beginning of all this airway business we always knew the worst case scenario was getting reconstruction surgery. Today we went in prepared for just that. It is very difficult to explain without pictures. Thankfully Dr. McClay took a whole bunch and sorry if they gross you out.




Here is Carter's airway when he first went in. I think it's pretty obvious that the huge granulation isn't supposed to be there so he immediately cut that off.




Leaving us with this tiny little airway. It is tiny but so much better than it was 2.5 months ago thanks to him getting bigger (size is a big thing when dealing with airways) and his flux getting under control.

This is when he left the OR to come chat with us. He said that with the current state of his airway and the improvement in his reflux he felt that he could successfully fix his airway by dilating and doing a laser procedure. My first thought was um hello we have already done that and that is why we are here!!! He said that the way his scar tissue was and that the swelling had gone down he was confident it would work. Of course he had to also say that it may not be successful and we might end up having to do the reconstruction anyway. He left the room for a couple minutes to let us decide what to do. We knew what we wanted to do and they was move forward with surgery. We had mentally prepared ourselves for that and it was the sure route. We would know exactly when the trach was coming out and that the airway would be sufficient enough for him to breathe successfully without his trach.

1 Nephi 4:6 "And I was led by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which I should do"

We knew what we wanted to do, but weren't sure what we should do. After praying about it we had an overwhelming feeling that we needed to wait on the reconstruction. I had such a hard time admitting it, but one thing I know is to never deny the promptings of the Spirit. Boy was that a hard one to swallow. When he came back in we told him to go ahead with the dilation. Obviously this was what he wanted as well seeing as he left the OR even after we had signed our lives away to all three surgeons and anesthesiologists. This was very nice of him especially seeing that he could have had a nice paycheck from the procedure.




Here is his airway after he split the scar bands with the laser and dilated his airway. Holy smokes we have never seen his airway so big. We just pray now that it can sustain its size, because this current after dilated size should be sufficient enough for him to breathe on his own without his trach. We will start to cap his trach off meaning he will breathe in and out his mouth like you and I for the first time ever as early as tomorrow.




After he did the procedure he put on a topical steroid type ointment that should help the airway heal properly.

Now that I have had time to let this all sink in. I feel good about our decision. Of course I will feel a lot better if come a couple months down the road this is successful and we don't have to reconstruct. Over all it just feels weird. Weird that we are home and not recovering in the hospital.




It goes without saying that it was so much better walking in the recovery room and seeing the permanent marker on him where the incisions were going to be instead of scars and bandages. Poor little guy got "juiced" up for a six hour procedure that didn't happen and was not feeling too hot with all his left over anesthesia.




We figured why not torture him and put him in his Halloween costume with Boston. We are terrible I know.

Thank you so much for all your prayers. We know that we would not have been able to make that decision without the power we felt from them. Thank you thank you!
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