*the tonsils are coming out!*

Last Thursday we had Delilahs long awaited appointment with Dr Muntz an ENT at Primary Childrens Hospital. We have had this scheduled for well over a month, ever since her sleep study was done and it was confirmed that she had Obstructive Sleep Apnea or OSA for short. Her pulmonologist Dr Uchida had ordered the sleep study in hopes she would have a bad night and stop breathing while hooked up to all the monitors so they could get a better idea of what was going on when these events occurred. Now all I have to say to Dr Uchida is, be careful what you wish for! When we got the results back it showed that she would stop breathing 7.7 times per sleeping hour and have sharp oxygen desaturations at the same time. And this was a GOOD NIGHT! I would hate to think about what happens to her on a bad night. Since we can no longer use the cardiac/apnea Scott and I had no idea how often this was still happening. Thank god for the sleep study.

So, we go into the ENT and after going over all her results with us again and examining her he concludes that her Tonsils and Adenoids need to be removed. They were not enlarged but he feels she may have extra tissue behind them that is causing them to be obstructive to her breathing. Unfortunately he feels this surgery may not be a "cure all" and he is hoping to either eliminate her OSA or at least reduce the number of events per hour. We feel that even if this surgery can cut the amount of times she stops breathing per hr in half it will have been worth it. This is not a surgery that is commonly done on children under 2 years of age unless they have extreme OSA or continuous strep infections that do not respond to antibiotics. Dr Muntz is one of the best ENT's in the area and I feel confident that he will do a great job. I went over all my concerns with him about the anesthesia and her horrible reaction to it last time. When she had a brain MRI at 5mo old she was put under and after the procedure she developed a horrible painful rash that covered the majority of her body. One possibility though is that at this time we did not know of her extreme intolerance to dairy, soy and latex. After much research I have discovered that Propofol, which is most commonly used in anesthesia, contains soybean oil. This may have lead to her horrible reaction, or it could have been a reaction to being exposed to latex. This time around I know more and will make sure she does not come into contact with any allergens.

Delilahs GI doctor has been wanting to do an EGD (endoscopy to check for abnormalities of the esophagus, stomach and intestines) and her pulmonologist has wanted to do a Bronchioscopy (to check for fat tissue in her lungs which would confirm aspiration) so they are all going to coordinate and do all these procedures at the same time to limit her exposure to anesthesia. Scott and I have had to think long and hard about all these procedures and if we feel they will be beneficial in her treatment. We have decided to go ahead with it all and just pray everything goes as planned. After her procedure she will be admitted to PCMC for observation overnight unless she is having problems and then she will be admitted for a longer period of time. Dr Muntz is going to make sure at the time of the surgery there is an PICU bed available for her in case she has some unforeseen complications and needs to be monitored more closely. All of this is still sinking in and I cant say I am excited but I am looking forward to see how much it helps her breathing. Please keep Delilah in your thoughts as we approach her surgery.

On a happier note she has become MUCH more mobile lately and I know I am in trouble! Lately she thinks its fun to crawl under her crib and try to hide. Its funny how she thinks that if her head is hidden I cannot see her :) I think as she gets older hide and seek will be a favorite game in our house!

She also think she is old enough that she does not need to take naps anymore. Nap time now consists of her crying in her crib until I come and get her. The other day I caved and went into her room to soothe her after she had been crying for a good 20min only to find this....Yes she was standing in her crib! She has never done this before and we haven't even needed to lower her crib mattress...until now! Even through the tears of not wanting to take a nap you could tell she was so proud of herself to have pulled herself up. We are lowering her mattress this weekend lol :)

Other than that she is just getting smarter by the day. She likes to play a game with some different shaped blocks where she pulls one out and I tell her what shape and color it is then she pulls another one out,etc. The other day during this game she pulled one out,went to hand it to me and said "blue". I could not believe it!!! She was handing me a blue block and told me it was blue!!! She is just so dang smart! I now firmly believe her watching Yo Gabba Gabba daily is not a bad thing lol :)