Index nieuws

Dec 2003

Sunday, 12/21/2003
Dec 12 - 21, 2003
On Friday December 12, we got the results of the sleeping test that was done on Bram on the 3rd. Unfortunately Bram turns out to have sleep apnea in a severe form. He stops breathing for about 25 times per hour on average, also the oxigine levels in his blood decrease a bit. We decided to contact his ENT right away, since the advise was to get the tonsils and adenoids out asap. The adenoids were planned anyway, because of the many sinus infections he had, to be done together with the tubes in his ears.
On Tuesday the 16th he was hospitalised and the procedure was done. After this operation he had to stay in pediatric intensive care for a day and a night. This was necessary because he is so much under 3, has Down syndrome (increased risk on complications) and because of the severity of the sleep apnea. Luckily the next day he already wanted to drink and even eat a bit as long as the pain medication was working, so we were allowed to take him home.
He had a few rough day, because he had so much pain that he did not make it from one dose of pain medication to the next without being extremely miserable. This was sad for all of us. Now we can happily mention he is doing very much better. During the day we don't need to give him pain medication any more and even though he is still very tired (he was not fit before the operation either), he is playing quite happily. During the night he does wake up still, unfortunately, and he does need to be consoled by us then.
As long as things keep up like this, we have to see the ENT in a month from now. In about 3 months the sleep study needs to be done again, so that we can determine if the operation has improved the sleep apnea dramatically enough.
© Wilma & Erik van de Pol, 2000-2008