Journal Entry - Brenna - Thunderbolt 5

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Brenna The Angel

HOLY COW!

Are we glad it is Monday! Last week was very eventful. 2 weeks ago, Brenna was roughly diagnosed with bronchitis and given a broad spectrum antibiotic. She slept a lot and missed a bit of school. Last weekend she slept almost all day every day. Then, last Monday, mom just felt like she wasn't right so we skipped school and went to our naturopath doc and she ran a blood test. About 4pm she called us saying her CO2's were too high-say 95! Normal is below 40. She said she would do some research and call us back. Just as Brenna went to bed, she called us and told us to have her ambulanced to the emergency room. "If her CO2's reach 100, you won't be able to wake her up." Needless to say, we called Gold Cross (the ambulance my insurance would cover) and packed a bag. After our usual 4 hours in the emergency room, we ended up in PICU. YUCK! The logic and resolution behind the high CO2's was that she was sleeping a lot and without her bipap on. She doesn't expell her carbon dioxide like she should so every single time she sleeps, day or night, we need to put it on her. After 2 1/2 boring, somewhat useless days in PICU, we went home.

Then, Thursday morn, she woke up in a frenzy and had a seizure for about 4-5 minutes. To us, it looked like she had just passed out as she was totally blue. She had jaw-lock, so when she didn't come back for a while, Dad tried to pry her mouth open and give her CPR. He got bit-really hard-twice. IT WAS QUITE SCARY! She passes out periodically and she comes back after a few minutes and we are somewhat used to it. But this time it was just too uncomfortable. Just as the emergency vehicles arrived, Brenna started coming to and responding to questions. She was spitting out blood and the EMT's suspected pneumonia as they couldn't hear movement in her lungs. We chose to drive her to the emergency room. The blood was the ony reason we went. We sat there for 3 hours and during a docs exam, we noticed a missing tooth in Brenna mouth. THAT'S WHERE THE BLOOD WAS COMING FROM! Lungs and blood test were clear and we went home.

A few hours later, the emergency room doc called us and said, "...get her up to PCMC right away! In the x-rays we noticed that her tooth is sitting at the top of her airway and could be aspirated into her lungs"-which would be very bad! So we packed another bag and ran up to PCMC. We sat in the emergency room for SEVEN -7- SIETE HOURS! I kept asking the docs if this wasn't more of an urgent situation than they were treating it. And they assured me they were comfortable with it as she wasn't doing the chicken dance or anything to jar the tooth free. The took her into surgery and put her out and used a scope to reach in a grab the tooth. Afterward, the surgeon brought me the tooth and stated, "She is very lucky to have paralyzed vocal cords because the tooth was sitting inside her voice box and if it wasn't paralyzed, the vocal cords would slam shut to protect itself and she would have suffocated and died. HOLY COW!

Brenna has one awesome guardian angel looking out for her! She is feeling and looking so much better this weekend and she is back in school and loving it. We got approved for a second part-time aide. Now Mom doesn't have to spend her time at the junior high 3 days/week-although, I am learning a lot!

During the hospital stay, we talked them into doing her MRI instead of having to come back in 2 weeks. The results were "STABLE" which, I guess, is good. I was kind of depressed because we waited 6 months in between MRI's so we could get major shrinkage. We are praying for a new direction in her treatment-and I think we were directed to one. But that is info for a future entry. See you then.

Thanks to you all for your thoughts and prayers- Peace. Out.

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