Fun at the Hospital

You may remember that last summer, we noticed a swelling under Nate's chin on the left side.  After seeing an ENT, we were given the diagnosis of a plunging ranula.  (a good one to google for lots of info).  This is basically an obstructed salivary gland.  We were making plans for Nate to have surgery to remove this in June.  Then, on Wednesday night after bedtime, he informed me that his neck was hurting and had been hurting all day.  As Nate is notorious for procrastinating at bedtime and he had been active and riding his motorcycle earlier, I told him to go to sleep and let me know in the morning if it was still hurting.  He woke me up at 6 (an hour before he normally gets up) to tell me that his neck was really hurting and that it hurt to swallow.  You could tell he was really uncomfortable and his neck was extremely swollen!  We spent the day going between the ENT's office and the hospital for a CT scan.  His tonsils, neck, tongue and throat were all inflamed.  So, Friday we had to head to the hospital for a procedure to drain the fluid from the site.  The doctors thought at this point that we were dealing with a cystic hydroma, which is not really operable, but can be dealt with in a different manner.  They had to drain the site, put in some medicine, creating a scouring agent to irritate the tissue inside the growth causing the tissue to shrivel and stick together which would prevent it from filling with fluid again.  When they drained the area, they realized it was a ranula after all, but decided to continue with the procedure in the same manner to see how the ranula would react to the scouring agent.  Nate has to wear the drain in his neck over the weekend to allow the area to completely drain.  Then on Monday we are off to the hospital again (in the morning we head to the hand specialist to x-ray his broken hand and make sure it is completely healed and then he won't have to wear the splint anymore - more on his broken hand in another post!) Then in the afternoon, they will inject more of the medicine into the site on his neck, let it set for an hour, drain it and send him on his way, probably with the drain still in his neck.  Then Tuesday we are back to the ENT's for an evaluation of where we are at.  After that, it will be a waiting game to see what happens - if we need to inject more medicine, operate and remove the gland or continue to wait...  So, say a prayer for us.  And here are some pictures of Nate going through this....

Swollen neck, I think it was actually more swollen on Thursday.  This was taken Friday morning before heading to the hospital.  On Thursday, his throat hurt too much and was too inflamed for him to eat or drink more than a bite or two.  So he was pretty uncomfortable, and hungry!

At the hospital before the procedure.
The drain in his neck.