July 18th

So...Miss Lily.

Lots has been happening in the past few months with you. Mostly, since you're 4 yr check up even though I've been asking, researching, suspecting for about a year or so.

Finally, we got a kick in the pants and acted on it.

First, let's back date. December of 08, when Lil was 8 months old, she had surgery on her nose to remove a dermoid cyst. Some people have these and never realize it and are located in various places in the body. Lily's, however, was in the bridge of her nose and could have had a root so deep that it reached into her brain. Luckily, it was a simple removal and God blessed us immensely. But, going through this also made us aware of the appointments and surgery. We weren't willing to do it during school and wanted to be sure there were no other causes, we wanted it to be the last straw.

My problem and concern has been that Lily can not breathe through her nose. She never has been able to. She breathes really, really loud. She snores. When she's sick, she really can't breathe. She has horrible allergies and I hate being told "Welcome to Hampton Roads". We have tried every single allergy medication available and nothing has taken that stuffiness away. It's very difficult for Lily to make nasal sounds, hear sounds, and say some letter sounds due to this.

So, at her 4yr appt. in April her dr said that we should have her speech evaluated along with seeing the ENT to get to the bottom of the problem.

Speech evaluation concluded that she has an articulation problem. She has been going to a private speech session every Wed this month to help with it, but not sure.

BUT, today we saw the ever so lovely ENT, Dr. Derkay at CHKD.

We first saw a resident, since it's a teaching hospital, and he was very, very thorough with the questions. It actually made Mike and I question if Lily was really that bad. Once the head dr came in, he said he wanted an x-ray to see what we were dealing with. He also stated that the adenoids have to occupy more than 50% to do anything. (started to panic) After a quick trip to radiology, Dr. Derkay had the x-ray images by the time we returned.

By this time, Mike and I were ready to rip up carpets, shave Maci and do whatever else to get rid of her allergies and help our girl breathe. Until, Dr. Derkay brought us to his computer screen!

As I was shaking, trying to figure out what I was looking at and trying to conclude his findings by myself, I saw it. Her adenoids. They are sooo large that her passage is 90% blocked by them.

NO wonder she can not breathe!

Her nasal passage is a tenth of what it should be.

So, she's having them removed in mid-July.

Tonsils are fine, so they stay. So it should be a relatively easy procedure and easy recovery.

We also have suspended all speech lessons to give our girl a taste of life with breathing

through her nose. I'm hoping that she'll figure out the sounds by herself and if not, we know

where to go to get help.

Here's to a month from today...

July 18th :)

surgery for Miss Lily.