Update from ENT

      Just had a visit from Dr Smith who is back in town after being gone for the weekend.

      They just came in and gave us an update:

• Pathology wasn't able to find anything and at this point they just believe that it is surgery from his previous surgeries.  Great news is that they don't think it's cancer and really just scar tissue.  
• He has been breathing well on his own and are happy to see him off the vent. 

• When I asked how narrow his airway was prior to the surgery they said that they couldn't fit a 5 mm scope down it prior to the surgery.   So it likely was only 3-4 mm, which is about the size of his current feeding tube.

• Speaking of food, they think that they can get him off the feeding tube tomorrow and hope that he can start eating food on his own.   

• They aren't happy with the fit of his trach, and want to try to swap it out for another one.   This is something that is pretty common and it sometimes takes a few before they can find one they like.  Because they are extremely worried about anything going wrong, they don't want to move him to another room at this time and will be in ICU for at least 3-4 more days at least.  If they were to move him to the regular floor and something were to go wrong with his trach, there wouldn't be anyone available with the skills or tools needed to help him and which would be life threatening.   They want him to have a safe airway, yay for someone who believes this so strongly.   They however need to wait for the swelling to go down before they will do anything more so for right now it's just a time to recover.