The roller-coaster continues

It has been a difficult week. The excitement over Mason's success with his bottles was very short lived. Unfortunately, his breathing problems got worse as his bottles increased and, by Thursday, he was too exhausted and having too many apnea episodes to even finish a bottle. His doctor finally agreed that the 'give it time' approach was not working. They have tried several things this week to pinpoint the cause of his apnea and treat it, so far with no success. First, they gave him caffeine, which is used to treat apnea of prematurity, but that did not help. Then they did some blood work and a urine culture to test for possible infections. All were negative. Then they decreased his bottles and put him on a very low dose of prevacid to treat the reflux. His reflux seemed a little better, but the apnea continued. His doctor still thinks that reflux is causing the apnea, so Mason will be seen by a gastroenterologist on Monday. In the meantime, he is temporarily on a continuous feeding tube that goes directly into his intestines, bypassing his stomach (no more bottles for now). This should remedy the reflux completely, which will hopefully stop the apnea if the reflux is the cause.

We hope this will prove that reflux is causing his apnea and then we can work with the specialist to treat the reflux. It is extremely frightening to witness one of his breathing episodes and we are starting to worry about them causing brain damage, although his nurse assured us that is rare. If the apnea continues, they will run more tests next week to try to pinpoint the cause, possibly checking for brain damage or seizures.

Please keep praying for our little guy. We need to find some answers very soon so we can get him on the road to recovery - and finally get him home!