Ethan's ENT visit to evaluate his vocal cords

Since surgery, Ethan's voice and cry have slowly been getting louder and less hoarse. But, last week, I started getting more nervous about it because I was doing some research (I know, that is never a good thing to do) and reading some scary stuff about vocal cord paralysis. His cardiologist wanted me to check back in with him in July to let him know how Ethan was doing with this, so, I emailed him about my concerns last week and they were able to get Ethan in to see an ENT this afternoon.


The ENT put a scope with a camera on the end down Ethan's nose and took a look and there is good news. He saw movement in both the right and left vocal cords. I was relieved to know that the left side was not completely paralyzed. You would think that this would be obvious, but it isn't always as the right vocal cord can compensate for the left side. (It is amazing that God created our bodies in a way that they can still function properly even if something isn't perfect.)

What this means is that we don't need to take him back to the ENT for at least 6 months, if not one year and maybe not ever again. We will just continue to monitor him. It is ironic that just a couple of days after I set the ball rolling to get Ethan in to see the ENT, Brice and I both noticed that his voice and cry were noticeably louder. Weird.

I hated to put Ethan through something else traumatic - he DID NOT like this scope, but just felt like we needed to know where we stood on this. Now we do and hopefully we can leave this little guy alone for a very long time.

Thanks to those of you who have prayed specifically for his vocal cord to heal. The ENT said that with the trauma that Ethan has had to this area, it takes a long time to heal. The right vocal cord can compensate for the left side, but we pray that the left side will continue to heal and improve and be 100%.