I
ought to have recognized it. Having experienced my first physical breakdown at
the age of 13, the unmistakable warning signs should have triggered a screaming
brain alarm between my ears. Maybe I was just too wrapped up in my own pain to
see beyond the protective hedge I’d encased around my heart and mind to be able to recognize Parker’s suffering, the daily unraveling of his normally happy
constitution.
Sleep apnea symptoms were first on
his breakdown list. On several occasions during his daytime naps, he appeared
to stop breathing, then gagged and choked to get it jump-started again. Often,
he’d wake up crying and scared from these episodes, like he’d just awakened
from a hideous nightmare. Other times he’d cough several times and then quickly
return to sleep. Thankfully, I was present during the first event, and made
sure he napped within my eyesight from then on—in my bed—so I could watch and
count his breathing. Then I moved his little red toddler bed back into our
bedroom so I could hear him more clearly at night.
After a lengthy discussion with her,
his pediatrician recommended a preliminary sleep study analysis. The challenge:
getting a four-year-old connected to electrodes and breath-measuring machinery,
then having him remain in deep sleep long enough to obtain valid data.
So, one Friday night, a respiratory
therapist arrived at our home with the necessary bells and whistles, lines,
leads, and monitors to hook Parker up, plug him in, and instruct Chris and me
in the use of the machinery. For the second time in eighteen months, we were
receiving yet another crash course in home therapy and medical telemetry. After
several attempts at trying to keep Parker calm and quiet, and from angrily
plucking and yanking sensors from his nose and body, we eventually succeeded in
getting him to sleep.
Finally, all seemed well, and the
therapist departed, after promising to return in the morning to gather the
equipment, review the data, and forward the information to our physician and pulmonary
specialist. But within minutes of his departure, the first brain-shattering
alarm sounded. Our hearts slammed in our chests as Chris groped frantically for
the override switch to kill the sound. But every time Chris flipped the switch
back to “ON,” the alarm wailed again.
After a speedy machinery assessment, we figured
out that Parker’s heart rate was dropping below the monitor’s set threshold.
After reaching the therapist on his phone, we learned how to set a lower
threshold and restart the measurement. Through all this commotion, Parker slept
soundly, without interruption, sprawled like a pint-size skydiver on our
king-size bed. That didn’t really surprise us; he never awakened for any of our
house-rattling, Southern California earthquakes either.
Then, several minutes into the new
threshold setting, the eardrum-slaughtering EEEEEEEEEE!!!! screeched again. Chris
ejected himself from the bed like a rock slung from a catapult and then mumbled
several incoherent words. He raked his fingers through his hair while stabbing
at the phone buttons to call the therapist again to have him okay another
setting adjustment. “But,” the therapist warned, “any lower than that, and I’ll
need to return to your house, and we won’t be able to conduct the test.” We
re-set, murmured prayers, and then repositioned ourselves for the night: Chris
flat on his back in bed, me sitting cross-legged on the floor, propped against
the wall, regulation notebook at the ready to scribble mandatory log entries. Every
time Parker twitched, sniffled, squirmed, toe-wiggled or breathed, I had to
make a note of it. How we were going to ensure that he slept on his back—the
mandatory position—I wasn’t sure, but I dimmed the lights, settled in on the
floor, and kept my eyes glued to the digital data illuminated on the monitor
screen.
Just how and why I was relegated the
task of staying up all night, I don’t know. Maybe that job just gets
automatically invoked under the Mother moniker. Anyway, up I stayed, A-L-L N-I-G-H-T L-O-NG, with the entertaining nocturnal
crickets, to take those hallowed notes. Mercifully, we managed to accumulate
enough information for a proper evaluation. At daybreak, it took Parker
nanoseconds to disengage his airway and toe sensors, his chubby fingers peeling
and yanking. I helped his effort by gently removing the EKG pads crammed
together on his modest chest. Both of us were relieved to discard the wire and
sticky-pad arsenal.
But it wasn’t long before the
analyzing specialist informed our pediatrician that further studies were
necessary; and this time, “further studies” meant an in-hospital sleep apnea
monitoring evaluation followed by an appointment with a pediatric pulmonary
specialist.
Like a detonated combustion engine,
my mother’s worry gene jerked from zero-to-sixty in five seconds, and the
question-that-wouldn’t-die rattled around my brain like a mental pinball
against the cranial bumpers:
“God, when will this path of sorrow ever
end…?”
Little did I realize that He was
using my hurting son to pull my focus away from me.
________________________________________
NEXT WEEK: The next test: Sleep apnea testing
up-close and personal…
________________________________________
Until next week,
Thanks for
joining me!
Blessings,
Andrea
PS Tomorrow’s my birthday! Thank you, Lord, for yet another
year, to tell another story about You and your everlasting goodness!
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