My Little Man Insists On Being Different!!!

Well I got the results of the sleep study today. It sure doesn’t make anything more clear or easy! So basically it shows that A has high CO2 levels like I said before. However after I left I guess his CO2 stabled out at about 56. Still a bit higher than usual but much better than 80. They tried a few more times to shut off his .5L of oxygen but then he would desat so they would have to turn it back on. They then tried him at higher amounts like 1L and 2L. This would then increase his CO2 even higher. What does this mean? Well it means that oxygen is not a good thing for A. However at .5L it is okay…just no more than that. Oxygen at higher levels than this becomes toxic to him basically. This also explains why he doesn’t do well with sedation of any sort.

This also tells them that A is requiring a higher CO2 level than normal to have the drive to breathe. They think that over time his baseline of say 45 for CO2 has risen. So all in all he needs the hypoxia to make him breathe. Confusing? Yes! But as we all know, A has NEVER been easy!!!

As well as this, the sleep study showed significant obstruction. Where exactly? Well we are not sure. They are thinking that he is pooling his secretions in his airway and some of this is going into his lungs…micro aspirations. On the video, you can see him moving around and then it is like once they are clear he goes back to sleep. What can be done for this? Nothing really. There is no way to really stop the aspiration of his saliva. Over time can this cause harm? Yes, but it is hard to say how long or when things would get worse.

They also believe there is some floppiness to his airway when he is in deep sleep. Not surprising to them considering he is an ex preemie who has cerebral palsy.

So all in all it gives at least some idea to what is happening, but frustrating because there is nothing we can do for either as a fix. I did ask why the pooling seems to have gotten worse since the fundo. That is if they think the desats during the day are related to this. They don’t have the answer, so I am hoping that maybe his surgeon can provide some input on this when we meet up next week.

I saw ENT again today and he is very concerned about Ashton hitting single digit numbers for his oxygen. He did bring up the trach again but I refuse to talk about this until we have the team meeting.

So that is about it for now….