Tuesday, September 29, 2009

September pulmonologist appointment

It has been nearly 2 weeks since Brooklyn had her appointment with Dr. G2, her pulmonologist, so I am way overdue in writing this post.

Okay. Brooklyn weighed just over 21 pounds and they said she was 30 inches long (but I don't think she shrunk an inch since she saw Dr. A a few days prior!) Her oxygenation was 99%, and the nurse didn't tell me what her respirations were :(.

Dr. G2 was happy that increasing Brooklyn's dosage of Bethanechol has helped her stridor so much. It was literally two and a half to three weeks after our last appointment with him in June, when he increased her dose 0.3 ml, that her stridor pretty much disappeared at night. It was pretty incredible. It caused a lot of anxiety for us at first, because hearing every noisy breath she took at night was our "normal," but we have adjusted and can sleep without hearing it now.

Brooklyn has had a runny nose for about a month now, and Dr. G2 thinks the postnasal drip may be cauing her to cough more thn she used to. So now we have to give her a nasal spray once per day. She hated it at first, and I wasn't surprised. I mean, the girl can't stand when I try to wipe her runny nose. But now she doesn't mind it and even thinks it's funny to sniff really loud a bunch of times after we put the spray in her nose.

Dr. G2's main concern was that Brooklyn's stridor still gets pretty loud with activity. She gets noisy when she is running around and playing and even when she is doing things that aren't particularly exerting or strenuous, like picking up toys or getting her books out of her basket. Her respirations get a lot higher and she gets much noisier any time she is being active. I don't think that her stridor is as loud as it used to be, but it's still there, and she's still obviously struggling.

Brooklyn also coughs and starts choking out of nowhere, even if she hasn't been eating or drinking for a long time. Sometimes we are just riding in the car and she will just start choking, and I have no idea why this is going on, if it is the reflux or if it is something else. She hadn't actually been "spitting up" with the reflux for a while, she had been refluxing and swallowing everything back down. Over the past week, she has started spitting up again. The reason why I explain this in conjunction with her pulmonologist's visit is that all of her doctors have pointed out that everything inside of her throat/airway area is just weak...it's all connected...and there doesn't seem to be a great deal of improvement.

Dr. G2 said that he is concerned that she may be exhibiting some signs of "airway reactivity." I didn't understand what this meant, and all of my Googling didn't really help me either. A nurse friend of mine said that her son has it, and it means that he has asthma-like symptoms and has to have nebulizer treatments and such any time that he has a cold or is sick. So is it basically a chronic respiratory condition? Forever? That's really discouraging to me...I had hoped that once Brooklyn outgrew her laryngomalacia, we would be done with all of this for good. Does anyone know anything about airway reactivity or reactive airway disease? Can y'all help me understand what this is? I know I have a few nurse bloggy friends out there ;).

Anyway, Dr. G2 started Brooklyn on steroid inhaler, Flovent. It says on her report that it will "provide anti-inflammatory control" and "hopefully decrease the noise and work of breathing that she has when she exercises." She has to take two puffs twice per day using this lovely little contraption called the Aerochamber. It's like a tube with an oxygen mask and a one-way valve on one side and a hole for the inhaler to fit in on the other side. They gave Dave and I a "training session" at the doctor's office, and oh my, does Brooklyn ever despise that thing. The training session consisted of me holding Brooklyn's body and head still, Dave holding her arms down, and the nurse holding the Aerochamber on her face while Brooklyn screamed and did her best to flail and twist away from the Evil Torture Device. We had to watch for the valve to go in and out six times. Once it finally did, the nurse removed the mask from Brooklyn's face. I leaned back in the chair and cheered for Brooklyn. "Okay," said the nurse. "Let's do the second puff." Oh, crap. And then there was round two of the battle royale.

The inhaler has been terrible for us. It was a horrible battle for several days, then seemed to improve for a few days. We even had two or three days with no tears at all!!! But...now she is back to kicking, fighting, trying to pull the inhaler out of the Aerochamber, trying to stick her fingers in the valve, trying to run away, twisting away from me, shaking her head back and forth, trying to puff the inhaler extra times....it is no fun at all for anyone involved. We have tried to make it as "fun" as we can...we put it on our faces, we let her put the Aerochamber on her dolls and bears, we breathe loudly along with her...I don't know. It sucks. It's like the return of the evil nebulizer. She never did get used to that thing, it always scared her. I was so happy when we were able to return it to the home health agency!!

So that was our visit with Dr. G2. He said that he was pleased with Brooklyn's progress, but....you know. Why can't we be done with this? It seems like with every appointment, we are adding and increasing medications, when we were told so long ago that Brooklyn would be so far beyond all of this by now. We go back in 3 months.

5 comments:

MrsSpock said...

I have reactive airway disease. It never bothers me unless something triggers it, like this respiratory infection I've had for a month. Or I'm around a smoker, or it's really cold out. It's really not that bad. I use albuterol only when I have a nasty respiratory infection- this is my third this year, but life with a small child in day care does that. Before our son was born, it had been years since I had issues like this.

You didn't have a cute nebulizer like we do, didn't you? Ours looks like a penguin and J loves it. His treatments are twice a day now, with Xopenex and Pulmicort Respules (an inhaled corticosteroid in the nebulizer). I let him watch the Noggin channel to keep him calm. I don't know how you can get her to use the Flovent- I specifically asked for the Respules because an aerochamber seemed impossible at this age.

Liz said...

I'm with MrsSpock! I'm surprised the doc gave you an inhaler/aerochamber. Sarah didn't "graduate" to an inhaler until she was in Kindergarten or 1st grade. Until then, it was strictly nebulizer treatments.

Kate said...

I have asthma and take daily meds for it, but when I'm sick I have to take something extra. Similar to Mrs. Spock. Maybe that's what the Dr. was talking about?

♥.Trish.♥ Drumboys said...

I remember how much kids hated the aerochamber but in the long run they start to accept it.
Some mixed good news but glad DR is pleased overall with Brooklyn.

Sam said...

I hope she gets used to it soon, poor baby. We struggle with diaper changes, I can't imagine how bad treatments are for her.

All photos on this site are copyrighted. Please do not copy, download, or reproduce them without permission.