My Son Needs Oxygen Every Day. Or Does He?

My son needs oxygen everyday.  This is what my wife and I were dealing with a few months ago when my boy would stop breathing or make a very loud bird like noise called striding.

His striding would keep us up at night. Well, it kept my wfe up at least. I sleep through anything!

But this has slowly started to get better.  Through oxygen oximetry tests, his oxygen rates that we were providing have gone down dramatically. He sleeps right through the night and so quietly now that you sometimes wonder if he's still there.

We were also told he has vocal cord palsy on both his vocal cords.  A symptom that leaves people unable to speak or with a husky voice. This is a symptom that appears mainly when there is trauma to the cord during pregnancy or birth.  He did have the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck (poor little guy) but this is common and is not yet a proven cause of the symptom. We had scans on his brain to see why he would have this condition, but that came back as normal.

So, he just had it. He had vocal cord palsy. Couldn't say yes definitely, but the doctors did anyway.

As my lovely return readers will know, he hasn't shut up for months.  Every morning me and him have a chat before I go to work.  We've since come to realise that he was simply inflamed during his camera down the throat procedure, but the hospital was too rushed for time with a back log of patient procedures.  So they came to a conclusion quickly to save time that it wasn't inflamation but the palsy.

They sent him back to his room too fast and due to his inflammation, his breathing was constricted and he almost stopped for good.  That was our scariest day, where we almost lost him.

But, thats all a nasty memory.  A time we'll look back on to see how lucky we are to have our little boy.

But this post isn't about a whinge fest.  It's about something more important.

I am happy to say that after all these months..

HE'S FINALLY OFF HIS OXYGEN!!

And aren't we two happy parents!  We finally have our son back.  His face is no longer covered by plastic tubing specs. We no longer will trip over annoying cords or worry about snagging him or hurting his neck when the cord gets stuck.

He's been a trooper through it all though.  Hardly cries with it on his face.  Loved playing with it, loved sticking it in his mouth.  He's been a really good boy and never stops smiling or laughing.  I don't think it ever really bothered him..

The worst time I've ever had was being in the children's hospital around sick babies with tubes down their throats or with heart conditions.

It's terrible, but eventually it will be ok.

If you know a parent going through a similar time in their life, let them know you're there for them and it will be ok too.


So, my little lion cub is off his oxygen.  We love it.  But FYI, he still has it on during the night, only on the extreme lowest setting.  That doesn't annoy us or him though.  He sleeps, we put it on his face.  He wakes in the morning, we take it off.  It's like it was never there.

Look out world, here comes my boy!

- tork