aaaand...back to the hospital.

Abby has been readmitted to CCHMC after a few days of working very hard to breathe. When we called our cardiologist at the base (who also works at CCHMC), and he suggested that she may need to be admitted, I just wanted to cry. The first time we were home, I had completely reached my breaking point and was almost relieved when we were readmitted. At the time, we couldn't figure out why she wasn't growing or what we were doing wrong, and we knew that we needed help sorting out her feeding problems. This time it felt like we had things under control. We were physically exhausted, but Abby was still growing, so we were succeeding where we had previously failed. It really felt like things were going well, and we were so encouraged! Then, on Tuesday, as we were getting out of the car for a follow-up GI appointment, Abby started gasping for air. Her respiratory rate plummeted and her skin took on a strange, mottled appearance. She eventually recovered, but it was scary enough to send us to the cardiology clinic for observation. After a couple of hours it seemed like, though she was working a little hard to breathe, she wasn't in any acute distress, so we went home. We followed up with the base cardiologist the next two mornings when she continued to display increased work of breathing. Her oxygen saturation levels were lower than normal yesterday morning and it was decided that she would be admitted again. Although we suspect a respiratory virus is at play, there is also the possibility that her reflux is causing her to aspirate her food, which would be very very bad.

She has seemed ok since we arrived yesterday. Her oxygen saturation levels have been great again and nobody seems to know what's going on with her. We're still waiting on her viral screen to come back, but all of her other lab work came back clean. We did get some big news from genetics, which I will discuss in another post, but it doesn't have anything to do with these respiratory issues.

I'm not dealing with this admission well at all. I have to admit that maybe I wasn't doing as well at home as I'd thought either. I was getting irrationally angry with well-meaning people who simply didn't deserve it, but I think it was easier to focus my frustration on them than it was to actually deal with the stress of these last couple of months. Once we found out we were coming back, I had to take some time to work through the feelings I'd been squashing since before Abby's surgery, and I think I'm doing a little better now, but I just don't want to be here - I just want her to feel better so we can take her home.

Hopefully it will be soon. 

Here are some pictures of Abby being adorable at home even while not feeling well: