​Dr. Manfredi decided Lucas’ esophagus looked “really good” & he saw “no signs of reflux damage”! So he only took biopsies to test for reflux and decided not to dilate. For now, he wants us to increase Lucas’ bite size and allow Lucas to self manage his bites rather than us cutting food up for him. We may have more food getting stuck but Lucas needs to be a big boy and learn what bite sizes he can handle. Most importantly, Dr. Manfredi forsees we can wait a full year before returning to Boston for another dilation surgery. Such great news!
The bronchoscopy once again confirmed Lucas has severe tracheomalicia where there are sections in the lower 2/3 of the trachea which collapse by 80%-90% when Lucas exhales. The bronchoscopy was very hard on Lucas’ trachea. So he came out of surgery sounding junky and coughing. Plus, the anesthesia made Lucas nauseous and he threw up 7 times. Our anesthesia doctor ordered Lucas antinausea medicine and Tylenol.
From 9am to 3:30pm Lucas was trying to stabilize in the post op area. The nurses were extremely kind to give us so long in the post op area. Normally you have a max of 2 hours to stabilize and if you need more time you’re forced to be admitted overnight.
I should mention Dr. Smithers (surgeon who performed the bronchoscopy) found a cyst on Lucas’ vocal chord. Dr. Smithers believes the cyst is due to repeat intubation from anesthesia. The cyst can be ignored unless Lucas “becomes a world famous opera singer”. 🙂
Once we returned to the Yawkey House (Boston Children’s Hospital housing), we used some of the medicine we brought ftom AZ to make Lucas comfortable. For example, CPT (chest percussion therapy machine), atrovent, QVAR, hypotonic saline 3%, nebulizer, and Tylenol.
When Lucas work up on Saturday morning, he was happy & singing. In fact, he said, “everyone clap!”. Then, he proceeded to sing loudly “If You’re Happy & You Know It”. Seriously, Lucas is the strongest person I know!
Thank you Jesus for another successful surgery and for protecting Lucas’ brain from any harm!!!