ENT

Today Autumn had a routine check up with her ENT. She has a sore on one side of her trach stoma that looks awful & painful. I have been changing the gauze & cleaning it twice a day to keep it dried out. I was glad we already had an appt. scheduled so I could get her dr to look at it. He gave us some medicated foam to put on it so we can get it healed. I also had him look into her right ear because every once in awhile it will start draining some nasty looking stuff & have an odor. Sure enough it was filled with fluid. He could not even tell if her tube was still in because there was so much fluid so he called her in an antibiotic. I also asked the dr about checking Autumn's vocal cords. Surprisingly, we have never had them checked & had no clue if they work or not. He did a scope in his office. He put a camera down her trach & checked her vocal cords, tonsils, & adenoids. He said her left vocal cord works but her right one looks paralyzed. He said she could probably still make noise but she would just sound really hoarse. He also said this is something that can be fixed when she's older & gets her trach out. He also said her adenoids & tonsils were large but not enough to effect her airway or breathing right now. As time goes by, it may be something we need to take care of but right now he's okay with waiting. It's been almost 3 years since her last bronch scope but he feels like there is really no need to do one until she is off her ventilator. He said once we can get her off the vent then we can do a scope & deal with all the other issues. So, it's just a waiting game for her central apnea to improve before we can really do much of anything else. My plan is for us to see if we can get her vent settings down between now & July & then maybe push for another sleep study to see if her central apnea has improved enough to push for her to get completely off her vent. We'll see!