Sunday 15 December 2013

Flemish twins

The FH occasionally makes a joke about coughing and spitting, so perhaps you will see it in the title. Perhaps you won't!

I was woken at 6am this morning by the sound of the EFG gasping for breath.  She had made it into the bathroom and her coughing and gasping had also woken the YFG who was there with her.  She could not get her breath at all and was trying to gulp in air, making terribly desperate noises.  It was agonising to watch and not be able to do much to help her.  This is not the first time that this has happened, but it is the first time that it has happened in her sleep, and driven her from her bed.  She remembers nothing until the point at which I appeared in the bathroom to be with her.  It happened to the YFG once a couple of weeks ago when I found her at 2am gasping for breath, sitting on the landing.  Thankfully, she has not had any further big episodes.  I am certain now that the coughs they have had for ages have contributed to this somehow.

When we saw the doctor on Friday, we tried to explain what was happening in these episodes, but she clearly didn't understand the severity of the happenings, and we came away with a prescription but very little in the way of help for this.

Frightened and alarmed by what happened this morning, I turned to the internet when I got up at 7am.  I had spent an hour perched on the end of the EFG's bed whilst she tried to get some more sleep, but it wasn't very restful.  Googling "Choking on air" I came up with this website where I was relieved in a way to read that lots of other people know what she is going through.  The forum makes several suggestions which might help in the short term, but now that we have a way to describe more accurately what is happening to her, we will be going back to the doctor this week.  If it happens again and I have the presence of mind, the EFG has said she will not mind if I video it on my phone so that we can actually show the doctor what happens in an episode, since on examination in the surgery, she is unlikely to be showing any signs.

I am off now to make a chart to put up on the landing and in her bedroom with the suggestions on it, because I doubt any of us will be able to remember them when all we desperately want is for her to be able to take a breath.  I am somewhat reassured by reading that the worst that would happen is that she would pass out, at which point her larynx would relax and she would be able to breathe again, but I really don't want that to happen.  Trials and tribulations, eh?!  I am wearing my knees out.

2 comments:

Lyssa Medana said...

Hope EFG feels better soon, it is so frightening. x

Morgan said...

Thanks, Sybil - she feels fine when she has recovered from the episodes, and has actually been out with the YFG shopping today - I put them on the train and off they went. She's OK now, but it just happens now and again. Thanks for your kind thoughts, though xx