Landon's broncoscopy went really well yesterday. For the most part, the whole day went really well. Braydon and I were pretty anxious about seeing Landon after the procedure since he's normally not so pleasant after he wakes up from anesthesia. We told the nurse to prepare herself for a upset child when he came back. After all that talking about it, he proved us wrong. He came back so relaxed, not crying or anything. He laid in the hospital bed and watched "Finding Nemo". He started to get a little antsy when he realized he had an IV in, but the nurse recognized that he was uncomfortable with it and took it out. We knew he didn't need it anyways. After we got his normal clothes on he was all set to go. I was so proud of him. :)
Dr. Quinlan said that he was looking great. He took pictures while doing the procedure so that he could show us the progression. He said that Landon's mouth, throat and airway are definitely "abnormal" looking, but the progress that he has made from when he was a baby till now has been tremendous. He said that his tongue still has the little polyps on it, and that his tonsils are still really big, but everything else was looking really good. He's going to talk to a new collegue of his that came to Omaha from Children's Hospital in Boston. The doctors there work a lot with kids that have tumors and things like Landon. Dr. Quinlan is hoping that maybe he will have some ideas of some other things that we can try with Landon. He said he would like to remove Landon's tonsils, but after that put in a smaller sized trach and cap it off so Landon isn't breathing through it at all. He wants to see how well Landon would do breathing on his own without taking the trach completely out. He said that while Landon was under, he even took out his trach to see how he would do. He did great, so now Dr. Quinlan is wondering how much he really needs the trach anymore. I think we are more using the trach for a "just-in-case" scenario than anything else. After we cap the trach and Landon does well, we should be talking about decannulation (where we take out the trach all together)!!! YAHOOOOO!!!
I've included a diagram of the parts of the throat so it gives you a better idea of where things are in there. :) Hopefully, it helps you to understand a little better of what I'm talking about.
The only negative thing that Dr. Quinlan really talked about was Landon's epiglottis. He asked us about Landon's eating and how well he was able to handle swallowing without choking. We told him that from time-to-time Landon will cough when he's eating, but we've only really had one episode of Landon actually choking on food. (a hot dog, which was not fun, but what kid doesn't choke on a hot dog??) He said the reason why he was asking was because Landon's epiglottis isn't formed correctly from the lymphangioma and probably doesn't function the same way ours does. The epiglottis (as shown in the picture) is actually the part in your throat that covers your airway when you swallow. It, along with your vocal cords, are what protect your airway from food going into your lungs. Dr. Quinlan said that he thinks Landon's doesn't cover his entire airway. He said that Landon's epiglottis looks like a patient that has had theirs removed (from something like cancer). He said that patients that have theirs removed have to relearn how to eat, but it sounded like Landon had already overcome that. :)
All-in-all, the whole thing went well. There wasn't any shocking things that we found out. We pretty much knew everything he told us, but it was good to hear that things were getting better in there and not worse. :) The next step is to wait to hear from Dr. Quinlan about what his colleague says. If he doesn't offer any other solutions, we're probably going to move forward with the tonsillectomy and the smaller trach size. We may or may not wait till flu season is over to start that process....we'll see.
