Surgery

Christopher went in for surgery on Monday. He had a bronchial sinus that didn't close up when he was in utero. Apparently this is not so uncommon!  Let me back up.... He had this little hole the size of a needle point just above his collarbone and it kept forming a small blister type thing on his neck. It kind of looked like a little blackhead. When we would break it open, it would ooze a small drop of this clear, slimy fluid. I didn't know what it was so I brought it up at his last Dr. appt. His Pediatrician referred me to a surgeon for it. When we met with the surgeon, she took a quick look at it and immediately knew exactly what it was! That's when she told me that it was a Bronchial Sinus. 

Basically, when you are in utero developing you have these sinuses that nutrients and whatever go through to help with development of the throat, nose, brain and everything up there. After everything has developed, it is supposed to close off automatically. Well, his didn't and so they needed to go in and remove the sinus. She said that she has seen it when both (the one on the right and left) don't close up. We discussed what the options were and she told me that when they see this they encourage the parents to have it taken out because if he were to get an infection in it it could spread all the way to the back of his throat and be real close to the brain stem and all that. So they don't consider it an "elective surgery". We decided to have it fixed. 

What they do in the surgery is go in the hole (sinus) with a probe as far back as they can (sometimes the sinus will partially close off so they never know, until surgery, how far back they will have to go), cut around the sinus, stitch it up and pull it out stitching as they go. 

We are happy to say that it all went well! They said that his sinus hadn't closed up at all so it did connect right to the back of his throat. This is what the fluid was draining from his neck, saliva. Weird, eh?! They said that they pulled about 4-5 inches of the sinus out us his neck! Crazy! 

Anyway, Christopher was a real trooper and is doing very well!

When he went in for surgery, they gave him a little stuffed turtle. They were inseparable for the first couple of days!