# (X-post) My daughter's medical mystery



## fiddledebi (Nov 20, 2003)

Hello mamas,

I used to be a regular poster here on the forums, but haven't been around for several years. I wanted to share our story with as many parents as possible, and since these forums were such a huge help to me when my girls (now 12 and 9) were babies, I thought I'd start here.

My second daughter, Sammi, was born with something not-quite right: wheezy breathing, very fast, and terrible responses to respiratory infections. As she grew, the trouble expanded to feeding and to expected growth. It took us a year to get her first diagnosis -- cardiac in nature -- and between then and now, other diagnoses arose, some of them accurate and some of them heartbreakingly inaccurate.

Sammi is now 9 and living without medication, eating normally, for the first time in her life. I recall following the journey of Mothering.com user USAmma and remembering how she fought for her daughter's health, and I am forever indebted to her for sharing her story.

The common thread in our story as a family is that my instinct was usually pretty accurate, even if I didn't always follow it. I wish I had. I hope that, if you read what I'm beginning to write about what's happened, it will help you to trust your instincts and your expertise as a parent.

You can read about our story in ongoing posts at www.swallowmysunshine.com

Thanks for reading -- please feel free to share.

-Debi

P.S. For the sake of people searching, I want to include the various diagnoses at play for us over the last 9 years: GERD, double aortic arch, vascular ring, laryngomalacia, tracheomalacia, eosinophilic esophagitis, dysmotility.


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