Update

We finally had our appointment with the pulmonologist yesterday. I think we might be on track to getting some answers....maybe. We met with Dr. Kang, and it was actually a very pleasant appointment. Primary Children's has a new outpatient extension in South Jordan. It's really nice with a lot of fun toys and activity centers. While talking to the doctor, we had our own little child specialist playing with Miles and keeping him occupied. It made it so much easier without having to wrangle our little monster.

The appointment was pretty basic. Dr. Kang did a physical, but the majority of the appointment was spent discussing Miles' history. I really appreciated this because I've kind of felt that Miles has gotten a lot of diagnosis without really taking all history into consideration. He also pulled up past x-rays and reviewed them with us. He asked a lot of questions, and we did our best to answer.

So, what is his thought? Well, yes, Miles does have asthma. He does not think that he has malacia. He said that while he appreciated the recognizing of a problem in addition to asthma that it would be terribly unlikely that Miles would just now have this problem. He said that typically that is found in very young babies, and is typically gone by 8 months. Where there were no problems with this prior to a year, it doesn't really make sense. What he thinks that happened is that his vocal chord was nicked during surgery (which is very common), but it hasn't healed. What has happened as a result is that when he drinks, because of the injured vocal chord, there remains a slight opening allowing fluid into his lungs. Then his lungs become inflamed. He said that this could be why some medication can seem to be working and some not. Obviously, when the problem is asthma, asthma medication works, but when this is added, not everything does. He said that when steroids are administered they will seem to help because they will also lessen the inflammation.

So, what now? At this point, everything is still speculation, so we've got a lot of testing ahead of us. On the 28th, we will have a swallow study done at Primary. Hopefully, it will be helpful, but it's totally hit and miss depending upon if Miles will eat and how he does if he does. After the swallow study, the results will be sent to a pediatric ENT, and we'll have an appointment. From there, we'll go back to the pulmonologist with the ENT results, and we'll make a game plan. Still pretty up in the air, but at least it's something to start with, and at least something is being done to try to figure this mess out.