Tired of this now

[ailbhe]

Rob was snoring. Astrid was snoring. I woke Rob up to go get his anti-snore breathing strips. Then I realised Astrid wasn't snoring, she was rasping, and looked at her chest. Intercostal heaving and huge chest valley with every breath. Turned on the light; very pale skin with grey bits. Tried to talk to Rob about it; he was too tired to see and had no idea.

Called 999. Partway through the call - lovely, quick, friendly call-handler - she got massively better and we stood the ambulance down.

Now she's ramping up again. Rob is asleep in the girls' room and she and I are alone in my bed.

This is no fun.

Comments

[bens_dad]

I hope your night got better and all is well now.

We've had nights in A+E with Ben's breathing but the only ambulance trip was overkill from an inexperienced, panicked out of hours GP, when we knew perfectly well that a car trip from out-of-hours surgery to A+E would have been perfectly adequate and much less inconvenient.

It isn't fun when you get most of the way though a panic, they seem to get better, you stand everything down and then they get worse again, but I haven't a second 999-level worry like that and I don't think Ben's mum has either.

When Ben had his second bout of breathing problems we bought a pulse-oximeter (about 20 quid) which has proved accurate but not always helpful. Doctors don't seem to appreciate you having one and (apart from the GP without clue) seem to prefer to judge by symptoms. Twice we weren't sure whether he was OK, didn't like the numbers on the pulse-oximeter so went to A+E only to be sent home again. *If* you do get one find out what her numbers are when she is well, then you have a baseline to compare against, but I think they can cause as much worry as they stop.