What next? Will it ever end?

Those are a couple questions which have been running through my head today. We went to the neurologist with Jacob today to review the results from the sleep study. We knew as of last Thursday that he has severe sleep apnea. What we didn't know was what "severe" means. In his case, it means that during the test, he had 15 episodes of apnea per hour during normal sleep and 31 per hour during REM sleep (which was 32% of his total sleep time). His longest episode was 25 seconds and at one point, his oxygen saturation level dropped to 66%.

So, considering all that we've been through with both kids, I am about at the end of my wits! :) How much more can go on? I know that we are blessed it's not cancer or some debilitating condition. However, in Jacob's case, this sleep apnea is pretty bad. They'd referred us to an ENT last week which Jacob already sees because of the tubes in his ears. When I called, the earliest they could see him was 8/22. The neurologist is not comfortable with us waiting that long, so she was going to have her nurse call today to see if we could get in sooner. (In fact, she was hoping we'd have had the surgery before today's appointment. I don't know how we could have done that, but oh well.)

The treatment plan is as follows: As soon as we can get Jacob's tonsils and adenoids removed, we will. This will mean an overnight stay in the hospital as he very likely could have worse apnea episodes after surgery due to swelling and whatnot. About 6 weeks or so after the surgery, he'll undergo another sleep study to see if that took care of it. If it didn't, he will have to have a C-Pap machine which will help keep him breathing at night. He will not like this much.

I've been asked by a few people if I'll have trouble sleeping now that I know how severe it is. Last night, I'd heard a lot of movement, so I went upstairs to see what he was doing. I was pretty sure I caught one of the "stoppages of breathing." I just have to remind myself that he's probably had this a while now and survived. God is in control so I need to get all the rest I can. This is easy to say. We'll see how I do tonight!

Please pray with us that they can get Jacob in very quickly for his surgery. Ideally, I'd like them to just schedule it and not require a consultation before surgery. However, I'm not thinking that is likely, which I understand. I have an extremely busy week this week with important meetings, but if it has to be, it has to be and I will do what I need to do to be with Buddy.

Also, please pray that Matt and I can relax knowing that God is in control. Again, that's very easy for us to say, but difficult at times to remember. I'm hoping to hear from the neurologist's office in the morning about when we have an appointment, so I'll try to post about it tomorrow night.