The Invasion from Mars

For those of you unlucky ones who have had a chance to "room" with Ethan, you will know that he is either snoring or holding his breath.  I don't sleep a wink when we are in the same room.  Two years ago I blogged about his first sleep study.  I didn't hear back from anyone so I didn't think anything of it until I mentioned it to his ENT last Spring.  He called the sleep doc in and they realized he had slipped through the cracks.  Another study was ordered and Ethan did that in October.  When we were in for an audiology check the sleep doc came back (are we detecting a pattern here??) and his apnea is worse.  We could either "try" surgery or go for the CPAP.  The Children's Hospital has what is known as an "Adherence Program" that helps kids start and stick with the CPAP, so rather than try a surgery that probably won't help in Ethan's case, we are now "ADD" groupies.

Today was our first meeting.

After a lengthy interview from a psych man who resembled this psych man:

We went into a lengthy talk with the respiratory therapist.

After enduring two hours of this and with Ethan looking longingly at the bed in the room, he hopped up there to try on a variety of masks.

He was more than enthusiastic, for some reason, because you can tell from the pictures the masks look anything but comfortable.  I told him it would help him sleep better.  And he could breathe better.  And he knows all about breathing because Bill Nye is the expert and Bill Nye is his new best friend.

To be honest, I don't know how anyone can wear these, but I guess it is like anything else and if it makes you feel better it is worth it.   We have one week of just wearing the mask some during the day, a week at night on the machine and then we go in for a recheck.

Wish us luck - I have a feeling we are going to have some pretty wild hair mornings!