My baby is getting a nose job!

Weirdest title for a post ever, huh? Except it's true. Kind of.

To catch up, read my "Mother's Instinct" post.

When we were in the hospital the first time, Anna was diagnosed with choanal atresia. In a nutshell, it is the complete blockage of the back of the nasal cavity by bone and/or tissue. Babies can have it on one or both sides. When it is bilateral, it is diagnosed at birth and must be treated immediately. When it is unilateral, like in Anna's case, it can often go undiagnosed for some time, because the baby can breathe out of their good side. Or, in my case, it goes undiagnosed because of some whack-ass pediatrician who refused to see what was right in front of her smug face. But I digress.

The biggest indicators of unilateral choanal atresia are 1) a constant stream of thick mucus coming out of the affected side of the nose and 2) feeding difficulties and 3) the inability to pass the "mirror" test. For this, you stick a mirror under the child's nose. You should see fog on both sides. If you don't, this could be a sign of a blockage on one side. A sign that I told my pediatrician about and she dismissed it. No, I'm not bitter. 

I write the above because when we went nearly 4 months with Anna being constantly congested, with record-breaking amounts of snot coming out of only one side of her nose, I turned to Google. I never found much, but what I did find on one random forum was the term choanal atresia. A term I shared with my pediatrician, who again said that No, Anna didn't have this condition. Bitch. Ok, I'm done.

We had a follow-up appointment with the ENT at Children's Hospital on Monday, and he scheduled her for surgery tomorrow! I say this with an exclamation point, because although I loathe the idea of spending more nights in the hospital, I cannot even imagine how Anna's quality of life will be improved. 

All of this brain stuff has been going on since the end of August, but the nose thing has been her entire life. Think about having a stuffy nose for 6 months. (Think of all of those cookies I skipped when I gave up dairy to try and help her). Think about how crappy you feel at night when you have a stuffy nose and you can't breathe. Poor Anna has had that feeling all day, every single day.

Ever since surgery #2, my sweet Anna has been back to her happy self. She's just HAPPY. The only time she's not happy is at night, when we lay her down, because obviously she can't breathe very well so she gets up alot to tell us she's mad about it. I have to clear out her nose before every middle of the night feeding, and neither of us enjoy that activity.

She has to spend a minimum of 4 nights in the hospital to make sure she doesn't develop an infection (boo), but once we get home, I am wishing on every star that my sweet girl is done with major medical procedures, and she can go on and live her life like the beautiful, carefree angel that she was destined to be.

Wish us luck! And kudos to you for making it to end of this partially gross story.