Monday's Memory 1

I'm going to be corny and begin a Monday's Memory spot. Most often, and when time allows, I will post something from our medical journey. It will be long and incredibly boring to most of you but at least I will have it down for my children. I love the word REMEMBER! While I'm sure there are many little miracles that I have already forgotten, I love to reflect on our blessings and lessons learned.

I realized earlier this year when we were having an especially difficult time with Matthew (behavior issues) that we hadn’t shared a lot of his miracles with him and I wanted him to understand how very blessed he was and what a miracle his life was…he shouldn’t be so grumpy! Matthew’s story could not have happened had it not been for Joshua and our move to Minnesota. So I write about Joshua today.

Joshua was born in Colorado. Our first baby…a son! It was a great spring day. We watch video of daddy getting to hold him for the first time…grinning from ear to ear. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins outside the door waiting to see him and tears flowing when they finally do. He seems perfect… until the following day. The nurses say he is breathing kind of fast so they put him in the Level 2 nursery – that’s what they called it. They put him on oxygen and run a bunch of tests. We can’t find anything wrong they say…it is probably just the high altitude…some babies struggle with that here in Colorado.

Joshua was on oxygen for 1 month and then was finally weaned off. He appeared to be ok. He grew slowly and was VERY colicky. He wouldn’t feed for very long and wouldn’t sleep through the night. (I’m a first time mother…I don’t really know what he should be doing…I see a lot of this in hindsight). Doctors assured me that he was fine. At 6 months of age he started “passing out”. I don’t know the medical term for what was happening to him…passing out is just the only way I can describe it. The Doctor told me it was breath holding spells and not to worry about it. He ran out of the room and brought back a sheet of paper to read about it and we were on our way.

The “passing out” began to come more frequently – at first; maybe once every two weeks, and then once a week and then every few days until every day it was happening. They scared me to death! During all of this we were moving to Minnesota. My gut said this Doctor is wrong, my baby is NOT ok but I just kept feeling like I needed to just hold on…we’ll get in to see a new Doctor as soon as we can after the move (which by the way is a miracle in and of itself which I will share later).

I wanted to be able to explain the episodes better to the new Doctor so I watched carefully during them. I could tell one was coming on one day and placed my hand on Joshua's chest while he "passed out". I felt nothing! No heartbeat! I don't know if it was just very faint or if his heart was stopping...I don't think I WANT to know.

At about 8 ½ months of age we finally saw a Dr. David Griffin who I will love forever! He said… "babies don’t just pass out for no reason". He did an EKG which was abnormal - SURPRISE. He called and got us set up with a cardiologist a few days later.

To be continued…

Miracle 1: Becoming parents.
Miracle 2: Joshua lived through these "passing out" spells...many of them.
Miracle 3: Getting to Minnesota.
Miracle 4: Great Doctors and medicine!