Blue.....

Blue is by far Ethan's favorite color.

He will only eat with one particular blue spoon, he wants his milk in a blue sippy and he wants to eat out of the blue bowl......obsessed much????

One day I was putting a shirt on him and he spotted a blue shirt sitting over on the side and cried out bluuuueee. I asked if he wanted to wear the blue shirt instead and he quickly took off the other shirt, so he could wear the blue one.



Blue is also the color that his lips have been turning on random occasions.....we weren't exactly sure what was going on. I first noticed it one night while he was in the bath. He was playing like normal but his lips were bluish/purple. I kept a close eye on him, but he didn't seem like anything was wrong and after several minutes they went back to normal color. A few days later his teacher said that his lips turned blue while he was playing and they checked him all over and couldn't find any reason and said that he seemed to not even realize anything was going on with him. After several more episodes, I decided to take him to the doctor to make sure I wasn't missing something. She looked him all over and felt the same way I did, he is perfectly healthy and more than likely had acrocyanosis (lack of oxygen, usually around the lips and hands). She said to keep a journal of what was going on before/after/during these episodes and let her know.



Last Thursday, the daycare called me to let me know that Ethan had another episode, except this one was very different from before. He was sitting in circle time with the other kids going over flashcards when they noticed Ethan laid over, his eyes rolled back in his head and his lips/tongue were blue and very cold. It took them several minutes to get him up and moving and he was very sluggish and tired. I immediately called the doctor to see what we needed to do, but I felt like something wasn't right. She told me that she thought he may have had a seizure and we needed to get him to Children's hospital as soon as possible. Nathan and I immediately left work and went straight to the ER. By this time, Ethan was up moving and playing as if nothing had ever happened, he even walked himself into the ER! We stayed there for about 4 hours while they monitored his heart rate and other stats and did blood work and did a lung scan to make sure there wasn't some type of airway restriction. Everything came out great! The ER doctor told us to follow up with a Neurologist about the possible seizure.

Our pediatrician was great through all of this, we switched pediatricians the month before and she had not even seen Ethan until we went in for the blue lip thing. But she was very much concerned for him and wanting to make sure she covered everything. She wanted us to not only go to a neurologist but a cardiologist as well to rule out any heart problems.

On Thursday we went to a cardiologist and they did an EKG and an echo of his heart and all was GREAT! The cardiologist said Ethan's heart was perfect and he was very healthy, whew.....one major organ we could check off our list.

Friday, we had the EEG (check's the brain waves). It was a sleep deprived study that required us keeping Ethan awake the night before so he would sleep during the EEG. I was so worried about that. Ethan is NOT a good sleeper and I had no idea how I would get him to sleep with 50,000 things attached to his head. But he did so good! He sat there while all the electrodes were hooked up and then they wrapped his head in gauze to keep him from pulling them off. He did cry when we first started the test b/c he was very tired and didn't understand why he had all of this stuff hanging off his head, but about 10 minutes into the test, he was out! I was so thankful, I had been praying for a smooth testing time and God very much provided. The EEG lasted for an hour and then we headed over to the neurologist's office to wait on the results.

Praise the Lord, all was clear! The neurologist does think that Ethan's episode was some type of seizure, but he placed him in low percentage to have a repeat seizure. It may have been one of those things where it happens once and there's no explanation. We are to keep a close eye on him and document any thing else that happens.

It would be nice to have an answer but I'm so very thankful that all of the doctors that saw Ethan commented on his good health! What a wonderful blessing I take for granted each day, not having to worry over what doctor we see that day or what test we have when.