The Oxygen is Back

It looks like our goodbye celebration for the oxygen was a little premature. Breanna has been without oxygen for about 2 weeks now and it has been really great. She had been spitting up really bad before that and that stopped within 24 hours of removing the oxygen. She also learned how to roll over which would’ve been more difficult being tethered to the oxygen tank and started eating baby cereal without the worry of getting oxygen tubes dirty with those first sloppy feedings.  And we were able to move her up into the next size clothes and have her be able to wear all the hand me downs from her sisters (instead of having to buy all new clothes for her) – with the oxygen in place, she was only wearing sleepers since we couldn’t get onesies over head with the tubes taped to her face.

But a few days ago we started noticing some bluish/purplish coloring in her feet and one night I saw a little bit of blue around her lips. It always would go away and she never showed any signs of respiratory distress. On Saturday, the coloring was getting up to her mid calf and I really thought we’d be spending the day (our anniversary) at the hospital. I called the hospital nurse triage line and they walked through everything and said that since she was returning to her normal color that we’d be okay to wait and see our pediatrician this week.  She’s also started having trouble with her naps during the day and starting Saturday night has been waking up crying at night and having a hard time going to sleep – this from the baby who has been sleeping 12 hours through the night for 3 months now and rarely fusses when she’s put in her crib.

Yesterday, Breanna’s coloring was great every time I checked her so I didn’t call the doctor. But today it was bad again and this time in her arms, too. So, we went in for a visit to check her pulse ox. Her pulse ox was fine and her coloring was good, but I had brought pictures to show the doctor and hearing that it wasn’t just hands and feet, but going up into her legs and arms worried the doctor and she decided the best thing to do was to get Breanna back on the oxygen. So, we came home with another tank for at least a couple of weeks. After that, they’ll do another overnight pulse ox test on her and see how she does. The doctor thinks that the sleep apnea/breathing pauses may be happening even while she’s awake which would put her under temporary oxygen distress that would then be okay when her breathing is normal again – making sense of why she has periods of going purple and then having normal coloring.

I think I’ve taken all of this in pretty good stride the last several months. But bringing her home with another oxygen tank really got to me today.