Day 332

So I am 11 months old today. Looking back a few month Mom and Dad would have never thought that I would be spending my 11 month Birthday in intensive care! Things this past week quickly went from bad to really bad! I took a quick turn for the worse and had two horrible nights before being transferred to intensive care with anesthesiologists on call in case I needed to intubated.
As per hospital policy only Mom stayed with me on Thursday night. The night started out ok but things digressed as the night went on. By 2am I was waking up gasping for breath every 2o minutes. Mom would come running over and try and settle me. Sometimes it worked but often I would get too distressed because of the difficulty I was having breathing and they would have to give me a mask with epinephrine and oxygen to help me. The next night Mom and Dad both stayed despite the rules. It's a good thing too because the night was even worse then the previous one. I was having so much trouble breathing that when the nurses listened with the stethoscope the couldn't hear the breath passing. My chest was in drawing so much that it looked as if my stomach was going to hit my back. Mom and Dad were super strong and demanded closer medical attention. By the end of the night there was a whole team of people, nurses, doctors, resperologists and Mom and Dad looking after me.
An x-ray and some blood work was done and it was thought that perhaps I had pneumonia as well as croup. I was transferred to NICU and put on IV antibiotics and steroids. I had a consultation with the ENT (ear, nose and throat team) and it is now speculated that I have subglottic stenosis (a narrowing of the trachea). This would like have resulted from being intubated as a preemie and means that even mild swelling of the throat due to sickness can mean really difficult breathing for me.
Anyhow, the good news in all of this is that I am responding well to either the steroids or antibiotics and am now well enough to be transferred out of intensive care. I will be seen again by ENT on Monday and it will be determined if a scope should be done to look at my throat. If I am well enough they may not bother until a later date. Eventually it will be done regardless. The speculation at this point is that this is a condition I will likely grow out of by 2 or 3 years of age.