Kai did very well at his LONG appointment at Children's yesterday to see the Cleft Palate team. Thanks to a ready supply of fruit snacks and animal crackers, he was surprisingly awesome for the video-study and the nasal endoscopy, whereby the speech and language pathologist was able to see the inner-workings of Kai's pharynx when articulating specific speech sounds. I included a video below to see what the nasal endoscopy procedure looks like (the ENT basically takes a spaghetti-noodle type scope and inserts it into the nose, down into the pharynx) . Pardon the annoying music! The video at least gives you a good idea of what is involved. (yes....I'm very pleasantly surprised Kai cooperated through the whole thing! :) Way to go little dude!!!
The results showed that Kai does a medium-large gap between the soft palate and his pharynx (no surprise there...he is very hyper-nasal). The cleft-palate team will be discussing their recommendations, but it looks like he will likely have to have a pharyngeal flap surgery sometime after March. In the mean time, we also met with a prosthodontist to see if Kai would be a good candidate for a palatal prosthesis (with a speech bulb) to help with production of speech sounds using his soft palate in the mean time...before the p-flap surgery.
What is Pharyngeal Flap surgery? See this link: Pharyngeal Flap Surgery Facts: PDF. Yup...not much fun. Not looking forward to this one :(.
Interestingly...another little wrinkle that we learned as a result of the endoscopy is that Kai's carotid arteries are located very anteriorly....close to his pharynx (in most of us they're further "out" in the neck.) This means that he'll need an MRI and some kind of catheterization in order to be sure he is "safe" for the p-flap surgery. In addition, this info is important to know because we now need to monitor him very closely to be sure that he does not walk around with sharp objects (such as a pencil) in his mouth....as falling in this situation would be bad news!
Kai will also need to have tubes inserted again, as the ones currently in his ears are on their way out. Sigh...never a dull moment. These are more reasons as to why I am not out working, and will not be for the foreseeable future.
On a slightly different note, Kai will be seeing an opthamologist on Saturday at Children's.....we've noticed that his eyes have been crossing quite a bit lately. We just might have two in glasses very soon.
2 comments:
This is very interesting to me because I might have to have the same thing done with Griffin because his pediatrician recommended it since his speech is so nasal and difficult to understand.
I've talked to parents who say that the difference before and after the procedure is like "night and day." When would Griffin have the procedure? I think it is easier while they're younger...recovery-wise. :)
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