Dear friends, McKenna's procedure today went great! I am very hopeful that this will take care of things. It is a little too early to tell at this point but it looks good so far. She has kept up with her thicker liquids today and I will slowly start to introduce the thinner liquids. She was a champ once again with the whole procedure and only cried when they had to try a second time to get an IV in her. The anesthesiologist tried to get her to breathe a little gas before putting in the IV but she absolutely hates the feeling of the gas and she said that she would rather feel the pokes so I respected her wishes. What a independant little kid! In the past she has had a bit of a tougher time on the day of the procedure but today she looked great within a few hours. In fact, she made a friend with a little girl here at the Ronald McDonald house and they played all afternoon. Depending on how she feels tomorrow, we may do some fun stuff here in Seattle or even possibly head home. The Dr. really wanted us to hang out tomorrow since it was an airway procedure and she could still swell once the meds completely wear off but he said if she looked perfect we could head home. We were able to talk to him a lot about future treatment for her vocal cord problems and I have some other ideas about more long term management of the vocal cord paralysis. He said that, although anything is possible...the chances that her vocal cord will come back is very slim so we need to start to think about a more long term fix. The other possibility if this does not fix the problem is that it could be related to a sensory nerve issue in her vocal cords. If her sensory nerve from the brain is not communicating with the vocal cord correctly, then the working cord may be frequenly misfiring and therefore not closing when it needs to to keep fluids out of her lungs. That would be a much harder issue to deal and there is no treatment that can fix it other than some swallowing therapy that would only help to deal with the problem,not fix it,  so I am hopeful that this procedure today helps. It has been a very informative, good visit here in Seattle and the people have all been great to deal with so all in all I am very happy. The next hurdle is McKenna's scans next Wednesday and then we are home free for the rest of the summer! Yeah! Love, Laura