Shortly before Brooke turned two, we learned that her airway was going to teach us a lot of things we'd never experienced with Katelyn. We learned what croup was like during the the night and how scary it is to see your kid turning blue because they aren't getting enough air. We also learned that sometimes it takes a lot more breathing treatments and steroids than are "usually" required to get your baby girl breathing well again.
We learned a lot and each time it happened and I felt grateful that I knew what to do for her, but it was still scary and I hated watching her go through it. Her pediatrician assured me that it would get better as she got older. In some ways it did, because if we consistently used a humidifier in her room from fall to early spring, she did great. Except for when she didn't.
Her last episode happened when she was five. Kindergarten was in full swing and she was doing great. When she went to bed she was just fine but when I headed to bed later that night, I froze in hallway when I heard the terrible sound coming from her room. The same little girl that went to sleep just a few hours before in perfect health, was fighting to breathe and she wasn't winning. I ripped her out of her bed and headed for the large freezer in the garage. I wrapped her little body in blankets while I positioned us in front of the freezer where she could breathe the cold air and forced her to down an icy Otter Pop as quickly as she could. That got things under control so we headed inside and I finally got her to fall asleep in my arms while I waited for her doctor's office to open.
Like me, they were shocked that a healthy five year old's breathing was getting worse instead of better and asthma was not part of the picture. So they sent us to see a Pediatric Ear, Nose and Throat specialist who examined her (she was not a fan of that process) and said her adenoids needed to come out immediately. He also wanted to check out her trachea while she was under anesthesia for the adenoidectomy to see if there were any abnormalities that were exacerbating the problem.
Sure enough, he found that her trachea is abnormally narrow and covered with bumps that make it much easier to close off any time it is irritated. The good news is that the bumps aren't a sign of anything else and it isn't asthma related at all. The bad news is that it will be something she will always battle.
She handled the surgery like a champ but because of the exploratory part of the procedure, her trachea was very inflamed and she could not breathe. It got so bad that the surgeon came by multiple times to check on her himself and while he was standing there with us, she turned blue. We got amazing care and after about 8 days, she started breathing well again and didn't need anymore steroids or breathing treatments. Her surgeon checked on us at home multiple times and when I told him I was confident that I could do what needed to be done, we avoided two more hospitalizations.
She was such a trooper through it all and always takes the medical stuff thrown at her like a champ. I am so thankful to have such a resilient kid and to have an arsenal of outstanding doctors to take such great care of our family.
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