The 99th Inning

After 8 months and 99 rounds at various pediatric offices, we finally have an answer about James' congestion. It seems that the poor little tyke has extremely enlarged adenoids, so much so that they nearly completely cut off the air flow to his nasal passages--hence the mouth breathing. It took the ENT all of 8 minutes flat to look at the chart, talk to me, look in Jim's ears, check the CT and tell me that we would need another surgery. They will need to do an adenoidectomy (say that 10 times fast!), and put tubes in his ears because his entire sinus cavity and ears are full of fluid. They probably have been that way since we first noticed the fountain nose. Of course, it is a really common problem, and a short outpatient surgery, which will fix his snoring, apnea, coughing, runny nose, and hopefully prevent ear infections, which were inevitible at the rate we were going. Yes, it's another 20-30 minutes under anesthesia, but hopefully we'll know exactly how he tolerates that after our big surgery next week. There is no huge hurry for this new surgery, so we will go back in October to schedule it...probably before the end of the year. Sweet baby James will probably have had had 2 surgeries by the time he turns 1, but I can't imagine how much better he's going to feel!

What is incredible to me is that I'm not angry or upset--I'm feeling just flat out relieved and grateful. I'm relieved that we finally know what is going on--after all, this is why we switched doctors before we ever knew anything about the craniosynostosis. And I'm so very grateful that a child who by all accounts should have never gained weight (the doc said he had 'no idea' how this child would be able to eat well), and should have had ear and sinus infections of epic proportions his whole life (he hasn't had one ear infection yet!), has been happy, growing, and not delayed in any way that we can determine. So I go back to Ecclesiastes 3...there is some purpose in this timing.