Yesterday, Eva had her second ENT visit. Dr. Muntz decided that he would go ahead and scope her so that he could see if there was any vocal cord movement. Just like with my other two, I sat in a chair with Eva on my lap and hugged her arms and legs to keep her from moving while another person stood next to me and held her head still. The assistant took the endoscope which has a little camera on the end and inserted it in Eva’s nose and slowly went down her throat. When she got to her vocal cords we could clearly see that they were paralyzed shut and that there was absolutely no movement. Not even a little quiver. While I was completely expecting that result, I still felt a sinking feeling. Funny how no matter how prepared you are for bad news it still hurts just a little. I got over it quickly though because I know what the end result will be.
Once the bad stuff was done with I thought I’d just throw out the idea of a passi muir valve which is a special valve that goes on her trach allowing her to make normal sounds. I wasn’t even asking for one but really I was just asking when he thought she would be ready for it and how would we go about getting one? He said, “I’ll just call down and have one brought to you right now.” I couldn’t believe it! Getting one for the other two kids was such an ordeal but with Eva he just popped it right on her trach, listened for a bit(she was sleeping) and then sent us on our way! Rich had to go straight to work after the appointment so we didn’t have a chance to hear her voice until he got off work. That was the first thing we did when he got home though! Here she is, laughing audibly for the very first time!
I loved hearing her laugh and I loved hearing the kids reaction to hearing their baby sister for the first time. You could hear in the video Maya say, “I knew babies could laugh!” It has been so fun for them to discover their baby sister’s voice right along with her. In this next video you can hear how curious Maya is about Eva’s voice and other babies voices. She’s figuring it all out.
Both Aidan and Arabella were a couple months older than Eva when they got the speaking valve. She still seems just a little to young and will definitely need practice on it to build up to having it on for longer periods of time. She has a hard time managing big coughs with it on and I have to quickly take it off because she can’t catch her breath very easily. Right now we are doing about 5 minutes every couple of hours. With time and practice she will get stronger and be able to have it on all day.
I thought I would post a video of the first time Aidan heard his voice and one of the first times we heard Arabella’s voice.
Can’t believe that this is our 3rd time going through this process. It’s such a blessing to be able to hear your baby laugh, cry and just jabber about who knows what! Even if we’ve had to wait at least 6 months to hear it, it has been SO WORTH THE WAIT!
1 comments:
I love these videos! I love, especially, in Eva's 2nd one how you can see the surprise on her face when she hears herself. So precious and something that I, as a mom, definitely take for granite!
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