It was discovered this summer that Shelby's left vocal cord was paralyzed. Shelby has always had a very soft voice and it was becoming harder and harder to hear her as she got older. It became a struggle when she was supposed to give presentations in class and no one could hear her. The ENT that we visited was one of the few doctors in the nation that performs a nerve graft surgery that could potentially help Shelby. His plan was to cut a functioning nerve in her neck and graft it to the non-working nerve and hopefully once fused, the nerve would work again in 4-6 months. There is nothing that can be done about the actual paralysis of the vocal cord, but this procedure would hopefully bring more strength to her voice. We decided to go ahead and try it. While she was under, her pulmonologist wanted to do a procedure as well so she could get a good look at her lungs. We decided to schedule the surgery for July 31st.
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| Shelby was a nervous girl that whole week leading up to the surgery. She was scared that something was going to happen while she was under anesthesia. |
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| I had my mom come too so she could wait with me while Shelby was in surgery. Shelby walked with the surgeon into the operating room and we said goodbye. I was a very nervous mama too. It was supposed to be a 4-5 hour surgery and it took over 6 hours. Tucker came up when she was almost out and so did Michele, Pam, and Samantha. |
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| This was right after the surgery. Tucker and I went back and it was so good to see her. She kept saying that her throat hurt over and over. |
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| They gave her some medicine that made her sick, so she kept throwing up. She was unable to keep anything down for the rest of the night. After they switched her pain medicine, she wasn't in any pain, so that was good. Everyone that was here earlier came in to say hello and then Debby, Spencer, and Tyler came and visited that night. |
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| By the next morning Shelby was doing so much better. She was nauseated anymore and she was ready to go home. |
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| They let us go in the morning. Shelby had some cute stuffed animals brought to her to give her comfort. |
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| This was 2 days after surgery. Here is the craziest part of the whole thing. After we left the hospital, Shelby never needed pain medicine. They sent us home with a narcotic and we had tons of Tylenol and ibuprofen on hand, however, it was never used. I still am thankful for that miracle. It's about a 2 inch incision and she must be a pretty tough chick to recover without meds! |
