Hazel's Serendipity

This last week we went to have a visit with the pulmonologist (lungs) and learned a lot about the human body. There's nothing like talking to a doctor to help you feel stupid about your understanding of basic biology.

So...Hazel's been off and on O2 her whole life and I always understood it as being related to the paralysis and her lack of muscle tone in her trunk but the Dr. said it is really much more related to her scoliosis. She actually has kyphoscoliosis, which means the curvature is side to side and front to back. The front to back curve is displacing one of her lungs and is the biggest thing keeping her from getting a good breath.  It causes her to have spots in the bottom of her lungs that are collapsed.  The parts that collapse will eventually lose the use of the blood vessels so we are concerned about that and will be looking into a surgery in the next 6 months or so.   

She's been prescribed a b-pap machine (similar to a c-pap but has 2 levels of pressure). That will be a fun little adjustment for her-bless her little heart-but hopefully won't need it much after the surgery.  The surgery will be to put a temporary expanding rod in her back that stays until she's big enough for the permanent rod when she's 10 or so.

So we are starting down the path of all the things we have to do to get her ready for the surgery...mainly get the pulmonology department to convince the orthopedic department that she needs the surgery.  That means more sleep studies and other tests.  Anyway, we are glad to have the bladder situation cleared up so that we can move on to the next thing.