After 1 Year, 3 Months, 1 Week and 6 Days...

...Little John finally came completely off of oxygen. I know, I could have simply said that after 16 months of life John is completely off of oxygen...but it is more fun to be all specific about it.

On Saturday September 4th, Little John spent the night at the Children's Medical Center to have a, "sleep study" performed. The purpose of the sleep study was to determine if John's blood oxygen levels were solid and high enough for him to sleep without the aid of oxygen. Two months prior to the sleep study, the pulmonologist began to slowly wean John off of using the oxygen 24 hours a day to only using the oxygen when he slept (including nap times and nighttime).

Here is the family walking into the medical center for the sleep study. I already had a steady stream of happy tears rolling down my cheeks when I took this picture. In retrospect, 16 months really isn't that long of a time to be on oxygen...but I was really anxious, hopeful, and excited to see the end of the use of oxygen in sight.

I was also crying when I took this picture because we had just seen a toddler that was in a full body cast enjoying some outside time with his family. His mother was very teary...and seeing her anguish brought an immediate rush of emotion that hit me like a freight train. To be frank, I have been experiencing some emotions that are...well...something akin to, "survivor's guilt". I need to write an entire post dedicated to those feelings...but, suffice it to say, by the time we reached the 4th floor of the Children's Medical Center I had to take some cleansing breaths to calm myself and focus on the joy of the fact that this visit to the hospital was most likely going to result in my baby being taken off of oxygen forever.


When we got to the 4th floor we were thrilled to discover that the entire waiting room had been transformed since our last visit (when John had pneumonia) to an indoor playground with foam sculptures for the waiting children to climb on.

Mike and Evan engaged in a cutthroat game of Memory (that was bolted to the wall for the players' convenience).

John was not interested in holding still for me to stage a proper photo shoot. I kept saying, "John, John, look at me...." to which Mike replied, speaking for John, "No, Mama, I'm ready to hatch."

These two were happy to pose, at least.

Once we were ushered back to the room we let John play in his bed in hopes that he would get used to it before all of the electrodes had to be adhered to him.

We got to bring some of his blankies and toys with us.

Brian said, "Look it's like John is in jail and he is wearing the jail pants that Aunt Stephanie gave him!" Thanks for the, "jail pants", Aunt Stephanie.

Of course, everyone wanted to pose like they were incarcerated. This had better be the last time I see these three behind bars.

Brian was repositioning when I took this picture...so, of course, he demanded to be in the next one...

...and Brian's back...

...and, uh...John appears to be having some sort of an out of body experience in this one....

Mike spent the night with John and I took the older boys home. I called Mike right before I went to bed and ended waking poor John up. I felt like dirt when I heard John crying in the background. Mike said on the phone that he felt prompted to turn the phone off seconds before it rang. I really hate it when my poor choices are the reason for a prompting.

Mike made sure he took pictures in the morning when the study was concluded. They put the netting over top of the electrodes to insure that he didn't knock them out of place as he slept.

All of the electrode wires were encased in the black tubing that is around him in this picture.

How heartbreaking is this picture? I know. Poor little man. This was taken right before they took the electrodes off.

Happy to be all done and more than ready to go home.

We were told that it could take up to two weeks for the doctors to analyze all of the data from the sleep study and to continue to have John use the oxygen while he slept until the results were in. It only took one week and we got the call that John's study proved that oxygen was no longer necessary. I was giddy when I called the medical supply company and told them they could come pick up the oxygen tanks and the apnea monitor.

It has been wonderful to not have to tape the nasal cannula to his face and strap the apnea monitor around his chest each night. We continued to use the apnea monitor the entire time that John was on oxygen, even though he had not had a true apnea spell (meaning his breathing was truly interrupted or labored) for months. (Sometimes the monitor's alarm would go off if one of the wires became loose as John slept. The monitor would register with a reading of, "Loose Leads" when that happened.) We felt that as long as John was sleeping with the nasal cannula taped to him, it was best to use the apnea monitor in case the tubing wrapped around his neck and choked him in some way because, to my horror, I found him with it wrapped around his neck on three separate occasions when I went to get him up from his naps.

So, in the journey of recovering from a premature birth, John has left the need for oxygen behind. Should I close with a parting shot about how we are all, "breathing easier" now that John is off of oxygen, or is that too cheesy?

...no need to answer that..."cheesy" is my middle name...and we are all, "breathing easier", indeed.

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