Are We Having Fun Yet?

Not so much.

Emma has been to CHEO 4 times in the last 2 weeks. It is frightening how quickly her condition deteriorates. Last night, Emma was fine (with O2 sats. above 95%) at 11:00 p.m.., but 3 hours later she was in respiratory distress. Seeing her struggling to breathe is very difficult. It quickly brings back memories of all the scary early days in the NICU. The back-and-forth between home and hospital is also draining, emotionally and physically, for all of us.

Thankfully, as of this evening, Emma is doing well. She's still on oxygen and is receiving nebulized racemic epinepherine treatments every 3 hours which seem to help her breathe more easily. The team was a bit concerned she may be developing a bacterial pneumonia, but she hasn't had a fever and her chest xray looked OK (though we still haven't heard from the radiologist who was to review it yet). For now, the docs aren't sure why Emma has been having these ups and downs. As Eric said, they're wondering if she might have reflux and may be aspirating very small amounts of milk into her lungs after her feeds, resulting in the respiratory distress. The ENT specialist came in to see her this afternoon, but doesn't want to perform the 'scope' for a couple of days (hoping that she will then be less congested and the procedure will be easier on her). We should know more then. So, it looks like we'll probably be at CHEO at least 'til the end of the week...