More on Griffinator...

Well, I don't even know where to start with what has been going on lately. I can tell you that sleep has NOT been happening in our household, so exhaustion has been a factor.

I took Griff in on Friday to the new pediatric pulmonologist, who I love already. I wish I would have found her first instead of where we started, but all part of the process I guess. She did a lung function test and found that his lungs are definitely out of whack. The large pockets are only at around 56%, where as the small pockets are around 117% (they all should be at 100%). She also found that after a breathing treatment two of his pockets decreased, where they should have increased. She has some theories, the main one being that he is having a reflux problem. If you remember when Griffin was 5 weeks old he had surgery for pyloric stenosis. She thinks that there may have been a complication from that which is causing him to reflux and then aspirate. Or it could just be a swallowing issue where drops of liquid are going into his lungs and not into his stomach. The liquid is building causing the pneumonia. So where do we go from here??

She wanted him to have blood work to rule out valley fever as well. Check, did that on Friday. She wanted him to have a chest x-ray since he doesn't have one without pneumonia. Check, did that Monday morning. Oh wait, when we were there the technician asked why he was having the x-ray, I explained, then she asked where his last one was because she needed to compare them. Got a call from the doctor saying that he has pneumonia yet again. Thankfully, he is at home this week and on antibiotics and his breathing treatments, and not in the hospital. We were supposed to have an upper GI and a CT Scan scheduled for this week, but they are going to have to wait until his lungs are clear. Is that ever going to happen???

So no sleep you ask, on top of all that is going on with Griffin, McKenna has not been sleeping for the last few months. It has been getting worse and worse with violent tantrums and screaming in the middle of the night. She has only been sleeping about 3 hours combined the last few weeks. So I took her to the naturopath and they have her on a homeopathic remedy to help her sleep. They think she is suffering from night terrors, yes, I had them too when I was little. She has been on the homeopathic medicine for three nights and she actually slept for about 5 hours last night. Yoohoo!! While we were there they also gave Griffin a homeopathic, natural expectorant to help him and that seems to be helping as well. We are still getting up with Griffin every three hours during the night to do breathing treatments, so sleep will happen one day. I do feel like a have newborn twins :)

When we know more, I will pass on the information. I feel hopeful that there are answers beyond asthma and more medication.