Mother Nature got one sick sense of humor

Nature has played yet another cruel joke on this family. As if it is not bad enough that the events of Jake's cardiac arrest are forever be etched into my mind to relive over and over again in my imagination, we will now have to suffer through a set of very similar events as a part of a benign condition Jake apparently has called "Breath Holding Spells."

We're in the hospital again, this time after Jake's fourth such spell in a three week time period. Jake had an echo on April 14th. The results were good, not normal, but still good, with no change from his last catheterization in February - overall, positive news. That night Jake awoke about an hour after we put him down crying. As I picked him up to comfort him, his crying became more intense. After a particularly hard sob, Jake could not get his breath back, and proceeded to hold his breath of close to 20 seconds. After he finally took that breath he went stiff, the color drained from his face, his eyes were open but rolled back. He was out for close to a minute.Then, just as quickly he snapped out of it with a couple more cries and went back to acting completely normal.

We placed him on the pulse/ox immediately and his vitals were normal. His coloring came back immediately, and he sucked down 5 ounces of milk like nobody's business. It was as if that event never happened, which is why the cardiology fellow on call wasn't too concerned when I called him to tell him what happened.

Fast-forward a couple days to Friday Night: We have a repeat of the exact same sequence of events as I describe above, right down to the timing - about an hour after we put him down. Only this time when I get to him he looks like he's having a seizure. His back is arched, eyes rolled back, hands and arms twisted up by his head and feet curled in. Then he slumps into unconsciousness again. We were terrified and called 911. By the time the ambulance arrived Jake was back to acting totally normal. We decided to take him in anyways so here we are - all of Jake's vitals are normal and he's no worse for the wear. It's hard to say the same for his parents, however. Quite frankly, I just don't know how much more we can take.