A Red Letter Day!

Before I get to the pulmonology update, I have to mention that the children's store, Crazy 8's, has a complete giraffe-themed infant wardrobe. Now, I have written before of my fixation on giraffes for Andrea, so I have to admit to buying one of almost everything in the set. They didn't have the jeans or jumper in her size, and the sweater dress was ugly. Other than that, we are in fine giraffe form. You can't tell from the picture here, but the hat actually has horns! It is very cute.

So, we had a chest x-ray done yesterday, and saw the pulmonologist today. We are ecstatic to report that Andrea is allowed to be oxygen free during the day! We have to put her on the PulseOx during naps, and put the oxygen back on for overnights, but she can be off the oxygen for the bulk of the day! We are supposed to do spot checks with the PulseOx and keep a close eye on Andrea, but we still feel like we've been given a gift. It is a pleasure to be free to walk around the house without tripping over the cannula.

The next step now is to have a sleep study. One night, fairly soon we hope, Andrea will spend a night in the hospital, having a "sleep study". The doctors will hook her up to a plethora of machines to monitor just about everything you can think of, to see how her breathing is when she's in deep sleeps. We can't wait for this, because once Andrea can be off the oxygen over night, we can stop jumping to deal with the alarms from the PulseOx. We have been living with the alarms for almost four months, and I think it's starting to take its toll.

The rest of Andrea's pulmonology appointment was uneventful. There is some discrepancy in the size of her lungs as seen on x-ray. One is slightly bigger than it should be, and the other is smaller. Right now, it's not causing problems, so the doctor said it's just something they note and that we'll watch as Andrea grows. One positive finding from the chest x-ray is that Andrea's lungs are much healthier now than they were in the last x-ray. The doctor also mentioned that Andrea sounds good when she breathes. Last month, the doctor told me that her lungs were "crackly". Much of that sound has cleared up. She is retracting less and breathing more easily.

The next big event for us in on Monday, October 5. We have to go back to New Brunswick for "Developmental Clinic". Andrea will be assessed against the norms for full term babies of her corrected age. She is corrected to 4 months on Sunday, so the specialists will be looking to see how she compares to a typical four month old baby,

"All great achievements require time.”
Maya Angelou