Snorting Cocaine at Four

Yeah, thought that would get your attention.  Seriously .. Melanie's endoscopy went well.  They use a form of medical cocaine (get your head out of the gutter!) to numb her nose before the procedure .. don't think I wasn't tempted to ask for some for myself.  Ha ha.  While they had the "cocaine" in her nose (in the form of a very long q-tip) they (the speech pathologist, nurse and Dr.) tried to play with her, Dr. Matthews tying a blown-up rubber glove to her shoe.  She wasn't buying it for one minute.  Then they had a plastic alligator with push-button teeth that would snap your finger at random points.  No go there, either.  Finally after 10 minutes of number, up went the scope; a very tiny, spaghetti width tube with a light on the end (and a camera, of course).  I held her on my lap and watched the fun on the screen, and Melanie sat quietly and serenely while all this was going on.  NOT NOT NOT.  She was pretty upset at having a long tube shoved up her nose, numbed or not.  However, we all got her to say "TAKE IT OUT!" so Dr. Matthews could observe her palate in motion.  No closure whatsoever.  Which, of course, means the "S" word.  He will do some type of surgery on her where he'll take tissue from (where?) somewhere and lengthen her palate.  Don't know when yet ... he's going to check his schedule.  Sorry I didn't document everything with pictures, but I was busy holding her hands and head still.

It was really kinda cool to see her throat anatomy ... there was a small little tulip-shaped thing that opened and shut, which Dr. M. told me was her epiglottis.  If we had kept going, we would have seen her larynx.  But he had seen enough, and he stopped after that.  Then it was off to eat breakfast.  The paperwork had said "no food 12 hours before" but Dr. Matthews said, oh heck, you could have fed her breakfast!  Sheesh.  I thought for sure she would crash, and eventually I think I would have paid her $500 to take a nap, as I was fighting the rack monster in a big way.  Getting up at 5 a.m. will do that to you.  Nothing doing ... except later in the afternoon, on the way to Quentin's orthodontist, what does she do?  Right ... fast asleep in the car.  Who was Murphy anyway, and who came up with his law?