Bronchoscopy

Emily had her bronchoscopy today. We had to starve her all morning for anesthesia, but she was such a trooper. I actually kept her up late last night so she would sleep this morning while I took the boys out for breakfast and dropped them off with my mom. Then I came home and dressed her and took her to the hospital. She was none the wiser about food having ever been offered to anyone else, and she did much better than I had expected.

When we got back in the pre-op area, the doctor came in and talked with us before the procedure. Then they came and doped Emily up on Versed, and I think they expected her to lie down, get drunk, and relax. Not our Emmers! She was singing "Bringing home a baby bumblebee" so loud that everyone could hear her! That's our girl!!! She got drunk for sure, but she did not chill out. She is a very loud, singing at the top of her lungs, happy little drunk! It was very hard to keep her from falling out of her bed because she kept wanting to stand up in it and dance along with her singing. I wish I had a camera!

Then they came and took her for the bronch. The doctor came back a few minutes later to say that things went well and that her airways looked pretty good. There was a little bit of redness in one area and also some visible granulation tissue deeper into her lungs, but it didn't appear to be blocking her airway. She also has a weird variant of fewer than normal number of airways in her right upper lobe, but we were told that the last time and is nothing at all to worry about. Overall, things looked fairly normal. Of course we didn't expect that part of her lungs to really look bad. Her issue is deeper down in her lungs, in her bronchioles and alveoli, and a bronch doesn't go that deep.

They did collect samples for tests which was the main reason for doing the bronch, and results should start trickling in next week. They will be looking for hemosiderin and/or lipid laden macrophages (especially the hemosiderin as she has a history and we really need to be sure her lungs don't have any bleeding, even on a microscopic level), cultures for infections, and also looking at her immune system by checking her t and b cells in fluid from her lungs.

Although things went so well, it did take Emily about 3 times longer than they had anticipated for her to wake up. She was a sleepy little girl, and she woke up a very very drunk little girl. Denny and I had joked that the first words out of her mouth would be asking for food, and sure enough, after lots of grunting and groaning and jaw quivering (which they said was just a really odd looking side effect from anesthesia), she looked at me and said, "Let's go get a Happy Meal from MissDonald's." (She always says miss, never Mc.) Had to laugh at that!

We eventually did escape the hospital and Emily got her happy meal (which, holy cow, she ate every last bite of!!!!), but she is still so drunk. We got home in time for the Regatta parade traffic, and determined not to miss anything, drunk little Miss E is looking out the window watching what she thinks is the parade (which is really just a never ending stream of cars, LOL).

All in all, a long, tiring, but very productive day. Thanks so much for checking in on our girl. I will update again when results start trickling in.