Airway reconstruction surgery

Dr. Woolley said that the stenosis is bad enough that each cold he gets (remember our eventful Nov. list, there was a cold listed?) he will have this reaction. It will turn into croup and probably send us to the ER and PICU each time. He thinks we need to do the airway reconstruction surgery he mentioned over the summer. We had all basically put that out of our minds, we were concentrating on the hemangioma so much, there wasn't room for this major surgery in there too!

The reconstruction surgery involves opening up his airway and grafting a piece of cartilage from his ear. They will use this cartilage to widen (2-3 times greater than it is now) his airway and make it cylindrical like the rest of the airway is. He will be intubated (breathing tube-ventilator) and sedated completely for 7 days, then we will spend at least another week in the hospital recovering from all that. There is danger keeping him sedated and intubated for that long in the PICU with all the germs and sickness around, but the Dr. thinks it is either do this surgery soon or give him a trach and hope his airway grows in a couple of years, but there is still the risk of having to do this surgery anyway down the road.We feel like (and the dr. agrees) that the reconstruction now is the way to go.

We have tentatively scheduled this surgery for Dec. 18th, meaning we will be in the hospital for both Christmas and New Years. We all think it is better to get this over with as soon as possible. We can't have him getting another cold between now and then so Bryce and I are officially hermits!!