MRI

Andrielle had her MRI done yesterday. It was absolutely the worst experience I have had in my entire life. Gavin and I were allowed to be with her when she was put to sleep. They had me hold her on my lap, holding her arms down, while they put in her I.V. She screamed and cried the whole time. I tried singing all of her favorite songs and nothing would calm her down. We were going to try giving her the sedative without anything else, but she was freaking out so bad that we had to give her another drug to calm her – which it kind of did, sort of. Then they gave her the sedative and she was out. They took her to the MRI and Gavin and I waited in the waiting room for her. She was in the MRI for about 45 VERY LONG minutes. She came out of it screaming and crying, and then would fall back asleep. But every couple of minutes she would start crying again. While the nurse was wheeling her back to the room for her to really wake up in, she was crying and all of the sudden she stopped breathing. Her face went pale and her lips turned blue. They gave her some oxygen and got her breathing again within a few seconds, but it was terrifying! The nurse told us that during the MRI, every 30 seconds to 1 minute she stopped breathing. So instead of just letting her go home, they kept her to monitor her oxygen levels, which kept dropping every time she would tilt her head forward (while she was sleeping). She was fine as long as her head was way back. The nurse practitioner performing the MRI told us that it had nothing to do with the sedation meds they had her on and that most likely she is doing that every time she goes to sleep, so for almost 3 years now she's been dealing with this! She checked her out a bit and found that she has stage 4-sized tonsils, pretty much enormous for a 2 year old. So, she called Dr Miller (our pediatrician) and he got us an appointment for later that day to go over her MRI results and to have her tonsils checked out again.

Her vitals finally evened out, and even though she was still super sleepy, we were allowed to take Andrielle home. As soon as we got her buckled in her car seat, she woke up and wanted her sippy. She drank the entire thing within minutes. We got her home, and other than being a little wobbly, she was back to herself and very hungry.

We met with Andrielle's pediatrician yesterday afternoon. The MRI came back clean other than one minor thing (a casing on one of her nerves that could be causing her tremors) that may or may not be an issue - we will probably have to re-do the test in a year to make sure it isn't progressing. I’m definitely not looking forward to that! The pediatrician also checked out her tonsils and said they are nowhere near a stage 4; he puts her at a 2. Very confusing to have two doctors give us completely different information!! So he doesn't want to get her tonsils removed at this time. He also didn't seem very concerned with her possible sleep apnea. I AM - so I'm looking into finding another pediatrician because I want a second opinion. Her not breathing is a very big deal to me! So, hopefully we'll be seeing another doctor hopefully this week for that. I think that if she’s not getting enough oxygen at night, that would cause her to not sleep as well as she should be, and that could maybe be the reason for her delays. Even though Andrielle has probably been dealing with this (possible) sleep apnea thing for a couple of years - it's still new to me and it scares me to let her go to bed alone. I'm hoping we get it all figured out soon so that both of us can sleep better at night.