On Thursday, the other kids and I took Sophia to CHKD for her Neurology appointment to figure out what's going on with her breathing issues. Yes, it has been a full YEAR since this started, and we still do not have complete answers. But we are steadily working on pinpointing the problem.
The neurologist was great. DILM, as we'll call her, was caring, thorough, and understanding of everything I had to tell her about what we'd been through until that point. She understood what I was saying: that I agreed there was probably {definitely} a stress/psychosomatic component to the daytime shortness of breath issue, there was probably also a physical, organic root cause to the underlying issue, especially since Sophia was experiencing central sleep apnea in addition to that.
So. Sophie's scheduled for an MRI on the 29th, to rule out issues with her brain stem that could be causing the issue(s). Since she is terribly afraid of shots and needles, we are luckily going to be able to draw the labs she needs to rule out thyroid problems and iron-deficient anemia while she is under sedation for the MRI. How they're going to get the medicine to her to sedate her, I don't know, but hopefully she'll be able to drink something or have a gas mask, as opposed to an IV, because seriously, it practically takes an entire football team to hold her down to get a needle in the poor, shrieking child.
DILM asked me a lot of questions, and we were pretty much able to rule out seizures as a cause of the daytime breathing issue, but she gave me a number of things to look for in case that does ever happen, and I'm to call her right away for an appointment if we do ever notice anything "weird" during an episode that would indicate a seizure had taken place. Thankfully, though, neither of us think Sophia has been having that problem.
Down the road, after the MRI and stuff, we're also going to address Sophia's possible ADHD and treatments we can try aside from medications, which she understood I'm shying away from for my children. She said this could all be interconnected, especially if there are thyroid issues.
So that's where we stand, pretty much. 'Round and 'round we go, where it stops, nobody knows.
Wish us luck on the 29th!
Fin.
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