The ABc's of Freaking Out

There's something called an A&B episode. It stands for Apnea and Bradycardia. I'm not completely sure why they group these two together since they seem to be different phenomena. An Apnea episode is when Ellie's breathing stops for a little while ... and then so does dad's. After 10 seconds of no breathing the nurse's Spectralink phone is paged. The nurse will give her an opportunity to self correct. (i.e. start breathing again) A Bradycardia episode is when Ellie's heart rate drops below 80 and dad's skyrockets. Right now her heart rate is hovering around 130. Just like an Apnea episode, the nurse is automatically paged for a Bradycardia episode. To my knowledge she's only had two Apnea episodes and one was self correcting. The nurse said she was actually breathing very shallow both times. I say "only" because it is not uncommon for a child in the NIC unit to have half a dozen of these episodes during the course of a twelve hour shift. I can't remember how many Bradycardia episodes she's had. I don't think very many if at all. Mandy and I were present for a few fake ones that were caused by a bad contact between the equipment leads and her skin. We are just thrilled that Ellie has had so few A&B episodes and is even breathing room air! Please pray that she would be able to continue to breath room air and avoid A&B.