Sign of the Times

Every time Benjamin has to go in for surgery or a bronchoscopy, we always have to starve him for several hours before he is put under anesthesia. Now that he's a bit older he's starting to learn how to put his sign language to good use. After an hour in the waiting room this morning, Ben had enough and began pulling out all the stops in order to get a little food. Since his signs were falling on the blind eyes of his parents, he began to work on the nurses in the room. By the time he had finished his routine of squeezing his fingers together and rubbing his chest to say "milk pleeeease" followed by his most pathetic frowny face and a few tears down the cheek, the nurses had melted into puddles on the floor. I'm pretty sure if Adrienne and I were not in the room, Ben would've had himself some milk and a steak dinner if he knew the sign for it.

Once they finally knocked Ben out, Dr. Digoy was able to see some good progress with Ben's vocal cords. One side of Ben's airway had opened up so well, that the doctor decided to use a laser to clear out the last little bit of tissue that was blocking that area. There's still a considerable blockage on the other side of Ben's airway around the vocal cords, but Dr. Digoy is now hopeful that this blockage may also recede like the other tissue did.

He told us that he did not feel comfortable doing the surgery that Ben was originally scheduled for because he had done several similar procedures on other kids in recent weeks and was not satisfied with the results. The surgery is pretty painful, and he didn't think it would open up Ben's airway wide enough for him to take out the trach. So we'll probably head down to OKC again in two or three weeks to see how Ben has progressed and figure out what's next.

Thank you all as always for your prayers and thoughtfulness,
Whit, Adrienne, and the Benjamite