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| Emma (5) |
Okay… I’m not sure if you all know what is going on, so I will “catch you up.”
Emma (age 5) started coughing when all the other kids did when we were in TN for Daddy's last days and funeral. The others stopped for the most part. Emma kept coughing. This isn’t her first episode of chronic coughing. In the past, it’s been diagnosed as an allergic cough since post nasal drip is always present. Our chiropractor has always been able to help. She was “cough free” for a long time! This time around, her coughing has gotten a lot better since the fall… and even since Christmas… but it remains! And the crazy thing…the only thing at times that would make her stop coughing would be a breathing treatment (albuterol with the nebulizer).
SO… we finally decided to take her to the allergist/asthma doctor. She went two weeks ago, Thursday 1/13. I took her.
Much to OUR surprise and HIS (based on her symptoms)…she has NO allergies and NO asthma! (They did skin allergy testing and an eNO test to test for asthma.) These are HUGE praises yet we still didn’t have answers! So the doc wanted to do x-rays on her sinuses and her breathing passage way. He said a chronic sinus infection and/or enlarged adenoids could be the cause. X-rays could reveal these. We left the appointment and went to the imaging place and got the x-rays.
The nurse called the next day with the results. No sinus infection! Yea! BUT her adenoids are enlarged. =0( We were referred to an ENT. He is supposed to be the BEST. (I hope so.) (Dr. McClelland)
We expected him to say SURGERY which we did not want. (You know us.) I have been doing a lot of research, and we’ve been praying.
Last Thursday was that appointment. I did really like him. (just Emma & I went) He explained how this could be happening without allergies. It is basically caused by the environment & her reaction to it. So chemical smells, cigarette smoke/smell, perfumes, irritants in the air, etc. It is especially bothering her because she is a mouth breather (even though her thumb is stuck in it most the time)! If you breathe through your mouth, unfiltered air is going straight to your lungs. Your nose acts as a filter and humidifier, etc. This “treats” the air so that it is more suitable for your lungs. Emma’s little nose is so inflamed on the inside (80% blocked on one side and 50% blocked on the other side), that she is forced to do a lot of mouth breathing. And on top of that, her enlarged adenoids also make it hard for her to breathe through her nose. Listening to her talk these last couple of weeks (after reading about mouth breathing), I realized how much her voice does sound like she is stuffed up all the time. =0( So anyway, the unfiltered air going straight to her lungs is probably what is causing her bronchi to be inflamed and spasm and COUGH!
SO (as we suspected), he wants to take out her adenoids AND he wants to “shrink” her turbinates. These are the areas inside the nose that are all inflamed and blocking the airway. Thankfully, he doesn’t want to take the tonsils (they look great) or mess with her sinuses (unless this doesn’t fix the problem). He does want to look at them with a camera during the surgery.
(If you are just dying to read more, this is an article from their website: http://www.cornerstoneent.com/about-face-preventing-adenoid-faces-in-children/ )
Oddly enough, I pretty much had peace about all he was saying, but I wasn’t 100% sure we would do the surgery. Dano & I needed to discuss it… and of course, we wanted to pray some more. BUT I did go ahead and schedule it so that we could reserve a spot. Emma will have this outpatient surgery this Friday. It should be very quick with a 24 to 48 hour recovery.
He added that most likely this will continue to happen. This surgery will relieve her symptoms now and immediately help her breath better. So to prevent it from happening again, she’ll need to use a nasal steroid (Nasonex) to prevent inflammation. Also, he suggested that she might need something like singulair to help with the lungs. We are going to play that stuff by ear. Since we are moving to a completely different environment (Indonesia), it could stay the same or get better… we’ll just have to wait and see.
Starting with the meds to see if they could reduce the inflammation without the surgery didn’t appeal to him because she is so blocked that the meds wouldn’t reach everything they needed to. =0( If we were staying stateside, I would probably at least try the meds first or do some more searching. BUT we feel like we have tried so much and researched so much and our little Emma needs to breathe better now. I wish I had a good homeopathic doctor. I would definitely try that. BUT since we don’t, we have decided to do the surgery. So far, anyone who has said they had their kid’s adenoids removed has had positive things to say. I know it seemed to help my "little" brother when he was about Emma’s age and my "little" sister when she was in high school.
Please pray for our Emma's protection during this surgery and ultimately for her healing. I know in the grand scheme of things, this is a "tiny" procedure; however, it is still our little Emma going in a hospital for surgery... and that is big to us. Thankfully our Lord is big enough to shoulder our concerns, and He loves our Emma even more than we do which is hard to believe. Thank you for standing with us!
Love,
Melinda =0)
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