No surgery - yay!!

Enjoy this while you can - I make no guarantees as to how long I can continue updating the blog as frequently as I have been!

Last Friday was our followup appointment with the ENT. We had two primary goals - to discuss the results of the sleep study, and to schedule Caitlin's ear tube surgery, depending on whether or not she'd need to have her tonsils and adenoids removed as well.

We got to Kaiser early, thanks to the fact that we always put the appointment in our calendar about 30 minutes early, then forget what the real time was, so when we get there 15 minutes late we're actually 15 minutes early. We got checked in, they took us back to get Caitlin's vitals, then we sat in the waiting room for 45 minutes. They finally called us back to an exam room, and we sat there another 15 minutes. Finally, Dr. Gross came in and told us that the problem was that they couldn't find the results from the sleep study! Fortunately, Cherylle had the number to the clinic in her appointment book so they were able to call and get the results faxed over immediately.

Dr. Gross finally came in with the paperwork, but started by doing a quick look in Caitlin's ears again - and lo and behold, one of her ears actually appeared to be clearing up! The antibiotics she took before didn't appear to help, but the heavier ones from her pneumonia actually did. Then she pulled out the sleep study results, and let us know how they went. When she slept on her back or side, which was most of the time, she only had 3 episodes per hour, which is completely under the "normal" limit of 5 per hour. When she slept on the back, which was less often, it went up to 12 per hour, which classified it as "mild" sleep apnea, which was between 5-15 per hour. Her O2 sats did drop, but stayed above 80% and as seldom as it happened, she didn't feel that it was time to be aggressive with surgery. Then, she explained that since one ear looked like it was clearing up, and since Caitlin's hearing tests all showed that she was capable of hearing, and that she was obviously picking up words, it wasn't time to get agressive for that, either; so, no surgery!!

She felt that there was still the possibility for concern in the future, so we're scheduled for another audio test in three months, with a followup ENT appointment in four months. She also wants us to repeat the sleep study again in a year or so, since the tonsils and adenoids can grow faster than her breathing passages can, and there's a possibility that the "mild" problem this year can become worse by next year... So, this tells us again that we're finally working with the right doctor - not one who thinks that surgery is the right thing to do, but one who is willing to do all the testing necessary to know that we're doing everything she needs.

Thanks again to everybody who sent us well wishes while Caitlin had pneumonia - despite the FOUR molars she's cutting right now, she's still doing much better than before! We really feel blessed about that...

Here are some shots we just scanned from last year's national - if Detroit was that much fun, I can only imagine how exciting New York is gonna be! See you guys there!