Breathe, Liam, will you?

Liam currently doesn't breathe enough.  The problem is more severe when she's asleep.  A typical person would breathe 12-20 times a minute when they're asleep.  Liam is on a rate of 4-5.  The Dr. said that last night he counted her on 1-2 times a minute!!!  Dangerously too few breaths.  That's the reason for the intubation.  When a person breathe so shallowly, you would expect the CO2 level in their blood to go through the roof.  Surprisingly and strangely, Liam's levels are fine despite hardly taking any oxygen in.  Go figure. 
But the intubation is not a long term solution.  First of all, it's going through Liam's mouth and throat to the lungs.  Obviously she can't speak or eat as long as it is there.  Secondly, there's a risk of infection.  So the medical staff has to come up with alternative options within the next few days.

Liam was never a good breather at night.  But this is way too low.  Her brain is not commanding her to breathe, for some reason.  So what do you do?  There are several options - but there's no guarantee that any one of them would work:

* Stimulation drugs:  The Dr's already started her on a low doze of Ritalin.  The hope is that it'd stimulate the brain enough so she breathes more.  It takes time to kick in.
* Tracheotomy (trache):  We're learning more about these days.

As I said, either way is not guaranteed to give better results.  Plus, they bring up other questions:
- Will Liam be able to sleep restfully with the Ritalin and still breathe well?
- Would the trache improve her life back to where she was?

And beyond those question, if we look at the big picture again, every time something was "fixed", something new popped up.   Makes us wonder:  if the breathing problem is addressed in a way that Liam can live, what would be the next problem?