ENT

Our ENT spent over an hour and a half with us today.

She examined his upper respiratory tract with an endoscope to confirm that there is no blockages that could have caused the poor oxygen levels during his last hospital stay. The only thing of note found in this endoscopy was the confirmation of his laryngomalacia.

Examination of the ears revealed a stenosis (extra narrow path) of the external ear canals and a chronic inflammation of the ear drum due to fluid build-up in the middle ear. [Previously in this blog I referred to this inflammation fluid as "otitis media" but I was told that that was an incorrect term.] Inserting grommets is still recommended as an attempt to resolve this inflammation (and associated conductive hearing loss). We were warned that because of the copious secretions in his throat, we may find that his ears may leak like his nose does. This is a potential infection risk that may require frequent ear drops.

We also discussed other procedures that could be done under the same GA:

• PEG insertion
• CT scan
• ABR test

The ENT also told us that getting two procedures done at once was very difficult, getting four together may be extremely difficult. The nurse in charge of booking the theatres and surgical teams gave us some of the reasons for this impracticality and didn't think that it would be possible to achieve. I still don't know if this is a good idea to do all of these procedures together as these other procedures will add a considerable length of time to Raphael's anaesthetic. I don't know what the best thing to do is anymore with regards to all of this, but I do know that want to improve his hearing as soon as possible.

We have another Australian Hearing appointment on Tuesday 3/4/2007 which I believe will be an opportunity to fit hearing aids.