Decision Time

About ten days ago we noticed Connor working harder to breathe again and developing signs of a cold. Last Tuesday we were admitted to Children's Hospital in Omaha for the night. Our doctors advised that we needed to take some sort of action to make things easier for him. The only thing they could offer us was a tracheotomy. Brian and I were not prepared to do that as we had discussed trying the lateralization procedure that was done at Mayo. The problem... Our doctor at Mayo was out until the 14th of July. We decided to put him on steroids again and try to buy more time.

This last weekend Connor continued to have troubles, and the steroids did not appear to be working as they did in the past. He then had a pretty rough Monday after he finished his round of steroids. We went to meet with our pediatrician and we agreed that something needed to be done and we didn't feel that we could wait until the 14th. So this is where my annoying persistence comes in. I called the doctor's office at Mayo repeatedly making them aware of our situation and our desperation to help our child. So yesterday afternoon they called me back stating that they shared our concern and told us to come up to Mayo, and we got in the car and drove.

This morning he went for some MRI's to do additional scans of his brain and spine to ensure that his condition is not neurological. Right now we are still waiting for him to get back to the room and to hear about the results.

Tomorrow they will most likely perform the lateralization of his vocal cords. We are very nervous as this has only been performed on a handful of children in the past, but feel that if this works it will be a much better solution for him than the tracheotomy (it has been performed by other doctors on several adult patients). The procedure is essentially pinning back on one of the vocal cords. It is reversible if movement does ever come to his cords.

The doctor we have here is outstanding and is very dedicated to her patients (as you can tell since she is coming in on her personal leave time to operate on Connor). We will keep you updated on Connor's blog page and let you know they results of the MRI and how the operation goes tomorrow.

Love,

Staci, Brian, and Connor