Things seemed to be going well when we left for work yesterday morning per our usual routine. Nova had only woken up once that night, and wasn't really coughing too much. I was minding my business at work, when i got a page from my mom that there was a problem with nova, to call ASAP. As I'm sure you can imagine, absolute panic ensued. I got through to my mom, and she said Betsy had been watching nova, and tried to give her her medicine. Nova got upset, and started her usual breath-holding, and then her body became completely rigid, and her arms extended, and she completely arched her back until her head was almost bent back to her bottom. She was like that for about 20 seconds, and then became flaccid and unresponsive for 20 seconds. Of course betsy freaked out (justifiably!) and called my mom. Once nova snapped out of it, she was fine, and acting like her normal self.
I had bets bring nova to the E.R. anyway, to see if there was anything wrong, or that we should be doing. The E.R. doc just told us basically that is a rather classic breath holding spell, and that it is not uncommon for baibes to have "seizure like" activities after a long spell of breath holding. He said there isn't really a whole lot to do about it, and it doesn't really have any long term effects. So, I guess the breath holding is back with a vengance.
It's a little tough, b/c we are trying our hardest to not raise a drama queen. for example, on Sunday nova was playing with her cell phone, and Juneau took it from her, which caused nova to cry, of course. I didn't really want to coddle nova over such a tiny little thing, so i let her cry a little. when she realized i wasn't going to pick her up, she got a little more hysterical, and then started breath holding, until she did the rigid posturing thing again, and then had the flaccid thing. That time it only lasted like 10 seconds, but it is still quite terrifying. It is a fine line, because of course we want to prevent breath holding if at all possible, but at the same time, we don't want her to become overindulged by us responding to every time she makes a peep. She is just so incredibly sensitive, and gets her little feelings hurt so easily, that it is hard to protect her from getting hysterical about little things.
Here is her x-ray from last week. Isn't it just the cutest :)
2 comments:
Wow, I have known some people who have kids that hold their breath but never that severe. Poor Nova! Hopefully she will grow out of it soon and hopefully you don't have a lot of tile in your house.
I know it must be horribly stressful for you guys and everyone who babysits for Nova, but she sounds so adorable. I love that she's so sensitive - it's precious! Now if she could just stop holding her breath to make her point! She's a smartie though and has probably already learned that drama = attention. I'm interested to hear the ped's "anticipatory guidance" and advice on how to parent through these spells. Do you ignore the spells so as not to reward or reinforce them, or do you scoop her up and console her before the breath holding starts? That's hard stuff!
And yeah - her chest xray is precious!
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