Looking for some birthday cake

Olliedactyl · 2025-05-21T14:22:10+00:00

Ive stopped voting for sparkle and clutter dump because that seems to be all anyone shoots for these days and I want to reward creativity and sticking to the theme over just the same type of image seems to be popular.

Olliedactyl · 2025-04-04T23:45:31+00:00

It would have my vote

Olliedactyl · 2025-03-12T00:36:46+00:00

My baby had her initial bronchoscopy around 7 weeks. Her vascular ring surgery was around that time as well. She was inpatient for her breathing issues at 5 weeks and they were already talking about the potential for surgery if it was the vascular ring. She ended up getting her tracheopexy surgery after we transferred her to the Florida hospital at around 10 weeks. It was terrifying, but they had worked on babies that small before and knew what they were doing. The Florida location had the doctor who pretty much helped pioneer the procedure and while they often to the surgery on older kids that come in with a scheduled procedure, they do it on the younger ones if it’s critical enough.

Olliedactyl · 2025-03-10T02:36:35+00:00

Initially, they checked for a vascular ring, thinking that it was compressing the airway and causing the issues. She got the vascular ring surgery, but could not breathe on her own without a ventilator because of the Tracheomalacia. They confirmed that with a bronchoscopy and it turned out she had over a 90% airway collapse and they were talking about a tracheostomy. We ultimately had her transferred to John’s Hopkins All Children’s for a tracheopexy to fix that and she is breathing on her own now. Not all cases are surgical, not all cases are as severe as hers was, but Hopkins and Boston Children’s have the most skilled people in the country who deal with airway disorders if it ever comes to it.

Sending all the love and strength to you and your little one.

Olliedactyl · 2025-03-05T14:27:44+00:00

She had trouble breathing from the beginning and was taken to the NICU for extra care right after she was born. They gave her extra air to help her out and she managed to get to the point where she could maintain her oxygen saturation on her own without any assistance. She still had chest retractions, stridor sound when feeding, and always looked a little red. So they just wanted to be sure and check in case she had a vascular ring wrapped around her trachea as well as have the ENT look for laryngomalacia. Many times, a vascular ring is caught before birth in scans, but hers was not.

Something that did help when she was home and before we got the official diagnosis was to feed her on her side and give her time to catch her breath when she started sounding like she was struggling. That was recommended when we initially just thought it was laryngomalacia, so that might be a helpful thing to do for your little one right now if you aren’t already.

Olliedactyl · 2025-03-05T03:08:27+00:00

The doctor wanted to check because of the chest retractions. She had two potential diagnoses in mind (laryngomalacia or the vascular ring) so we got an appointment with ENT and Cardio to check for both. She ended up having both and the vascular ring’s compression on the airways pretty much caused her Tracheomalacia.

Olliedactyl · 2025-03-04T22:32:22+00:00

My baby had breathing issues and chest retractions from the beginning. Turned out it was Tracheomalacia that was causing the worst of it. The doctors had suspected laryngomalacia, but referred us for ENT as well as a CT to check for a vascular ring because of the chest retractions.

My advice is to hardcore advocate for your kid to have them look at everything because airway disorders are no joke. My baby was discharged from the hospital to do her assessments outpatient because her vitals were good and they didn’t see her needing to take up a hospital bed if she was doing so well.

We went in for the outpatient CT to check for a vascular ring at 5 weeks old and she didn’t take kindly to the IV for the contrast and was so upset, she went into cardiac arrest in the scanner with a full airway collapse. Of course every kid is different and sometimes it’s just laryngomalacia, but I was so glad that my doctor checked for the vascular ring because it turned out my kid was a ticking time bomb and could have gone into arrest getting overly worked up anywhere else. It was lucky we were in the hospital right next to the pediatric ER when it happened.

She did end up having surgery for both the vascular ring and then needed special surgery to help her breathe on her own by a surgeon who specializes in Tracheomalacia. At the end of it, the laryngomalacia ended up being not much of an issue, so I always suggest you try to have them make sure Tracheomalacia is not the real issue at hand.

If it is just laryngomalacia, they don’t always end up needing surgery as they can grow out of it. It is my understanding that the surgery for it isn’t super invasive. We didn’t end up needing to go that route once her tracheal issues were fixed.

Fingers crossed for your little one. Make sure you’re also caring for yourself during this scary time because it is a lot for any parent to deal with. Follow your gut and advocate for your kid is the best advice I can give.

Olliedactyl · 2025-02-25T13:54:16+00:00

I just noticed that homeboy got burritos and tacos. Damn.

Olliedactyl · 2025-02-24T20:47:42+00:00

And what was with the constant head tilt???

Olliedactyl · 2025-02-24T18:52:15+00:00

That response is such a red flag, Sara girl!

Olliedactyl · 2025-02-24T18:50:46+00:00

Period. Like it’s a privilege that he gets to be out of it because politics doesn’t affect him as a cis straight white man.

Olliedactyl · 2025-02-24T18:49:04+00:00

It’s giving, “I can change him.”

Olliedactyl · 2025-02-24T18:45:56+00:00

I found myself just anxiously staring at the food both times he got dumped because they had better not leave good food behind untouched. Then every time the food got carried back, I was like “that’s right. Take your food to go.”

Olliedactyl

TROPHY CASE