First sign something was wrong...

The first few months, where great... simply the best. The thought that something was wrong never crossed my mind. We took her in for her well baby visit, everything was good she was gaining weight. Now that I really think about it the only "off" things with her other than her supposed feeding discoordination was that when she fed through a bottle she would spill a lot and choke often, but she was gaining good weight she was chubby chubby I will post a picture of her as a baby before we knew anything was wrong with her she was such a good eater she loved eating!!! So we were the perfect little family of four. We were adapting to her and her to us... I went back to work had to go through the hard part of leaving my babies to my sister in law so both my husband and I could work. (Brianna was only 5 weeks old when I went back to work geez)... Time went by and she would choke less, she would still spill a lot on the sides of the nipples of her bottles but like I said her weight was good ((chunky I might add))... so it wasnt a concern. Another thing that I didnt notice then but do now that I look back, she was constantly congested and with a runny nose. I thought it was because she was born right before winter so cold season and didnt think much more, of course I would take her to the doctor and he would say just a little congestion nothing to worry about and he would yell at us that she didnt get better because we didnt suction her enough with the blue nose bulbs... and blamed that that was the reason why she was always congested... any how.



On February 27th 2008 (I still remember like it was yesterday)... I was sitting in my room on the bed carrying Brianna watching TV when all of a sudden out of no where she stopped breathing, in my arms... she tried to grasp for air and she just couldnt... she turned purple in her face her lips turned black her entire body stiffened, she closed her eyes and passed out/fainted I was histerical shaking like crazy screaming trying to get her to start breathing again trying to stimulate her I didnt know what was happening to my perfect baby... she was lifeless in my arms purple in the face... my husband ran in and I practically tossed her in his arms yelling help me shes not breathing... he freaked out by the time he grabbed her she started breathing again and was crying I was histerical (something was wrong, terribly wrong)... I HONESTLY TRULY BELIEVED MY BABY WAS GOING TO DIE IN MY ARMS RIGHT THEN AND THERE... I was crying like I dont think I had ever cried in my life I dont think I knew I could cry such rivers and for so long. I held my baby now crying and breathing again and I cried and cried and cried and cried and cried... I honestly cannot tell you if we called an ambulance this time or if we drove to the hospital... I dont know if we took her to the closest hospital and then they transfered her to the childrens hospital it was all a huge blurr... I think we did call ambulance and I think we did end up in the Anaheim Memorial Medical Center ER and they ended up sending us to CHOC Childrens Hospital of Orange County...



Brianna was admitted into the hospital. I do remember how terrified I was for the first time in the Childrens Hospital being admitted into a room, the doctors comming in and out for the first 3 hours, telling us to describe what happened to 10 different people. They put in her IV, I cried. They ran some blood work... I cried. They ran some RSV and Influenza cultures, and said we would stay in the hospital until they had these results back and so they could keep an eye on her. Well we stayed 3 days. During these 3 days, blood work came back normal, Influenza negative, RSV negative... which was good... then they did a CT Scan of her head and ran some xrays of her chest to check for pneumonia. THIS REALLY NOW THAT I THINK OF IT... MAKES ME VERY VERY MAD.... so for the second time around second set of CT Scan on her head... "results... NORMAL" would you freaking believe that????? Pneumonia was negative, So her diagnose was brochiolitis... they said that she was so congested and her airways so clogged that she couldnt catch her breath and thats why she stopped breathing and fainted. They put her on the 5 day steroids (to be continued at home) to open up her airways they gave her some breathing treatments and by the time she was discharged they said her lungs sounded much better. They put in the request for a breathing treatment machine to take home wich we have had since. Since she didnt have another episode in the hospital and she seemed to be doing fine and all testing was normal except for the bronchiolitis which was improving she was discharged, and we felt comfortable taking her home. Oh yeah they sent us home with an apnea monitor... just in case, so we felt more comfortable taking her home.



We got teased a lot with these "normal" scans of her brain.... but still we had no diagnose out of the normal and so we went on with our happy little lives....



More to come on "First (( EMERGENCY)) Life Threatning Surgery"



Araceli