Miriam’s ENT performed a third endoscopy on her throat early this morning, with mostly positive results. There was some growth on her throat in the same spot as he has previously removed fibromas twice before, but it was much smaller (even after seven weeks between excisions). It was clearly a lump running vertically along the wall of her throat, whereas before the masses were growing out into her throat and blocking her airway. Dr. Nowlin said this type of growth is much more typical of an “irritation fibroma,” caused by an over-reaction to a stress to the throat – in Miriam’s case, the breathing tube from her VEPTR implantation surgery. He is not ruling out the possibility of the mass growing back once again, but overall it sounds like this is much closer to the expected progression of similar cases and that is reassuring going forward.

Dr Nowlin does not anticipate needing to see us again before Miriam’s expansion surgery in August. He will be in attendance then so that he can scope her throat while she is already asleep for the expansion. If anything is present, he will be able to remove it at that time. It will also give us a good baseline for the health of her throat before it is subjected to another breathing tube. Thankfully, this surgery will only require a breathing tube for a couple of hours at most, rather than over two days like the implantation. Her risk for injury or irritation should hopefully be much lower this time around.

We are greatly relieved that the growth seems to be slowing, and hoping that it will heal itself completely this time. Thank you as always for your prayers.

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