Asthma the Kid. Wahoo!

I'm not sure why I haven't blogged about this before now. Maybe I'm a little bit superstitious, although not consciously superstitious, and feared that any mention of the situation might manifest a turn for the worse. Who knows.

One late afternoon a couple weeks back, I arrived at TLO's daycare to find him in a state of respiratory distress. A short while before I arrived, the daycare providers (who are quite good, btw) noticed his little tummy puffing in and out in an obviously exaggerated fashion. I picked him up, listened for a couple seconds, and said, "Yep. That's trouble. We're headed to the doctor ASAP." I hopped on the cell phone and let STK know of TLO's difficulties.*

Halfway to the clinic I glanced back at TLO and found his eyes closed, his head slumped to the side of the car seat. My heart jumped into my throat. I yelled out his name, "TLO!" His eyes opened with start. He'd fallen asleep, something he does frequently on our ride home from daycare. My heart stuffed back into my chest cavity, we completed the short journey to the clinic.

We arrived at our local clinic only to find that all of the doctors were booked. What would you expect less than an hour from closing (It's the Midwest, folks. Everything closes around 5:30, believe it or not). Not to be denied medical treatment, we walked 20 yards to the Emergency Room. Within minutes, TLO and I were in an examining room receiving attention. Temperature. Blood pressure. 0xygen levels. Breathing. Both nurse and doctor confirmed my lay diagnosis: a wheezing chest. TLO received a visit from a respiratory therapist who expertly administered an asthma treatment. TLO, the trooper that he his, giggled and flirted with the therapist while she patiently directed the soothing mist toward his mouth and nose.** The wheezing abated within five minutes. Nebulizer + albuterol = relief. And thank goodness for that.

The proud owners of a Nebulizer 3000, we all made our way home and crashed. After a full week of regular treatments, we went to "as needed" status and have only had to administer one treatment. That's a good thing. I hate to see TLO dealing with asthma at such a young age but, at this point, it's totally manageable.

Asthma runs strong in your family. Your father has it. Your mother has it. You have it.

*Good thing we purchased cell phones, eh? Actually, we've used them to communicate about TLO's various illnesses a couple times. Illnesses, you say? That's a post for another time. For now, let's just say that the phrase "Germ Factory" is an appropriate description of the daycare environment.

**Unlike an adult who treats asthma with an inhaler, an infant can't inhale on command. As a result, a treatment consists of slowly administering the medicine in a very fine mist form. For a period of five minutes or so, you keep the mist swirling around a kid's mouth and nose. It's a slow method, but TLO seems to do just fine with it. In fact, he'll occasionally turn directly to the mouthpiece and start inhaling deeply and methodically. Somehow, he figured out that he receives relief from the treatment. Smart kid!