Now that I'm back to work, people ask, "What did you do this summer?" and while I can say that I had a great summer spending time with my son, what I don't mention is all the "CF-related stuff" that ate up lots of our time. Aside from his daily CF "stuff", 4 days were eaten up by having a Bronchoscopy, an Endoscopy, an ultrasound and a full clinic day. While it may that 4 days isn't very much, it's 4 days too many for a child who should be outside enjoying all the funs things of summer.
For Nash's mere almost two years of life, his life has been ruled by many medications, daily physiotherapy, throat cultures, blood work, ultrasounds and chest x-rays. This summer was the time for the next form of preventive treatment in the way of a Bronchoscopy and Endoscopy which took place at the end of July.
While some clinics do not do these procedure unless problems start to arise, our CF clinic believes in scheduling these procedures before problems become apparent, in order to prevent as much permanent damage as possible. They are primarily looking for bacterial infections that might not show up on a throat culture. While these were not invasive procedures, he did have to be put under and that provided us with some stress not knowing how he would react to having anesthetic, the recovery process (including being hooked up to an IV) and of course, what they might find.
The Bronchoscopy procedure was fairly simple and consisted of a camera being placed down his throat in order to look at his airways and lungs. The actual amount of time the camera was taking pictures was 15 minutes and once done, the Dr. came out and gave us the great news that not only did things look good, they looked great! She actually handed me a color printout of all the images for his "baby book" as she described and I almost laughed. Not something many babies will have in their baby book! This great news was a huge amount of relief especially for me, as I primarily do all the physio and I worry that what I'm doing isn't enough. It's hard as a parent to not stress about what you can't "see". To hear that all was clear, makes me think that all that we are doing is working. This isn't to say that we could to the same amount and he could have an infection, but the fact that there was little to no mucus buildup visible was music to my ears.
Next was the Endoscopy, another 15 minute procedure. Again, there were no signs of problems prior to the procedure but our Gastroenterologist felt that since he was already being put under for the Bronchoscopy, it would be a good time for her to go in and get a good look at his liver, stomach, esophagus, and duodenum (a part of the small intestine). She would also take 8 small biopsies that would be sent off in order to be analyzed. From what she could see, she was also very happy with the results but was on vacation when we went to our clinic visit in Aug. so might get more details of the results at a later time.
The recovery was by far the worst part of the whole experience. When he was walking up, he was still "out of it" and screaming and flailing and trying to rip the IV out of his foot. This was followed by his blood pressure skyrocketing and his oxygen plummeting sending alarms and buzzers off giving me a mild heart attack. It was a long few hours of recovery but finally he was calmed down and medically cleared to go so we happily went home. Our time at the hospital in total for the day was 7 hours so all-and-all, not too bad. At least they were just day surgeries. I asked when he will have to have these procedures done again and was told around the time he is 3 and a half. Until then, I'm hoping he continues to be as healthy as he has been and we can avoid having him put under or needing IV's for at least another year and a half!
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| Walking the hall waiting to go in for his Bronch/Endo |
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| Before they took him in for his Bronch/Endo |
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