Testing Testing, ENT

 We are just back from the Childrens' Hospital. 

Tess was meant to be having a test for Vocal Chord Dysfunction (VCD).

The test involved a 'scope' camera being slid up her nose (eek) to film her vocal chords / voice box. She was meant to cycle hard on an exercise bike, for five minutes, to see how the vocal chords respond to exercise. For the past year, she's had coughing fits when she exercises.

Poor girl didn't even get that far. The camera was only in her throat for a minute or so, before she started to feel, 'dizzy'. 

'She's very white,' said one of the doctors. 

Tess, two ENT surgeons, three technicians and me  - a  'Chicken Licken' crowd of us  - all stood, masked-up,  in the small windowless room, crammed with hi-tech medical equipment. 

They had to help her off the bike, and she looked wobbly and pale, like a rag doll. They let her lie on a leather examination bed. 

'I'm never doing that again,' she said to me as soon as we left.

However, the surgeons did get some footage and the 'cool surgeon' (Vans sneakers),  was able to say, straight away, that there was evidence of vocal nodules on Tess's larynx and clear evidence of 'Muscle Tension Dysphonia' or MTD.  MTD? WTF?

Let me get home to Google that, I thought immediately. He told me MTD is an umbrella term for inadvertent maladaptive muscle use in the throat - often following a viral infection. Kids can try too hard and their muscles over compensate. 

He replayed the video. Tess's vocal chords were supposed to open and close like lift doors. Instead they looked like two bed sheets flapping in the wind. Well, not quite - but there was a fluted, shaky look to them. 

The good news is, the ENT surgeon would refer us to 'Voice Therapy' and that might help. I confess, I am desperate for more than a 'might', but I'll take anything. 

I realised there was still the big unanswered question of, does she or doesn't she have VCD - in addition to the MTD?  How many acronyms can a girl have? How many can she bear?

The surgeon agreed that Tess  had, 'been through enough today' - ie - they weren't about to throw her back on the exercise bike and re-scope her. I don't think she'd have agreed to that, anyway. 

On the way out, the technician admitted that lots of people can faint, when you start poking around inside their heads. Go figure. I had a flashback to the time I fainted, age 15,  when I got stitches removed from my ear. 

So, we will chase up the Voice therapy. The doc warned we would have to 'adhere' and work hard at it. Ready and willing. 

Hit us with your crossed-finger emojis. Not literally, but metaphorically will do. 

We'll check back in with the asthma doctor too. Indeed the body is a complicated place to live...as if we didn't know. I'm pointing at you, 2020. And you can start to behave, 2021?