Asthmatic Response

Yes. Apparently that's what my son had early yesterday. Don't know what caused it, but the result was very shallow breathing, coughing, misery, and whimpering. Very not like my loud, energetic little boy.

Brought him to the doctor yesterday, and they put him on the nebulizer twice and gave him a dose of steroids to start cleaning out the gunk from his lungs. He's on the steroids for a few more days, and he's got an inhaler to use as well, as needed.

So that pretty much chewed up yesterday for me.

I also had Julia in tow during the doctor visit/go have x-rays taken/back to the doctor's office adventure.

She was fine initially, but once she realized that telling me "I'm sick too...cough cough..." wasn't working, she resorted to other attention-getting methods.

Things like...oh, annoying Alex with faces and a stuck-out tongue...then crawling around under the chairs in the x-ray lab waiting room. And later, back in the doctor's office, waiting in the exam room, she parked herself in the old leather office chair in the corner and spun herself around in wild circles. The chair only ALMOST fell over. And that time she got her foot hooked in the cord dangling from the otoscope...well, nothing bad happened, at least.

And once things were winding down, and our fabulous pediatrician was writing up Alex's prescriptions, I looked over at her, finally, and said sympathetically "You really want some attention, don't you."

And she said "Yes! I want some attention from THAT man!" And she pointed at the doctor. Who was laughing as he scribbled.

And he said (because he has known Julia her entire little attention-craving life) "Well, Julia, as soon as I'm done I'm going to give you a TON of attention." And he did. He sat down to go over Alex's inhaler schedule with me and had Julia stand there beside him to "Help explain this to Mommy." And after that, when Alex was on the nebulizer one more time before leaving, he sat Julia up there next to him and showed me, by comparing my two kids, how to spot the smaller signs of breathing problems. "Here, and here, you can see that Alex is using the muscles in his neck to breathe, but if you look at Julia, you don't see it at all."

And Julia was finally content.

Besides, she got two lollipops out of the deal and she wasn't even sick.

The doctor said there was a very slim chance that once the effects of the nebulizer (the medicine Alex was inhaling would hold his airways open for a while, but not more than 4-6 hours...then it would be time for the inhaler, probably.) wore off, I might, maybe, have to bring him to the hospital. Probably not, but it was possible. And the doctor told me he was on call that night and to call him if I was unsure of anything.

Well. Slim is still a possible thing, so I dozed for two hours in Alex's bed, listening to him breathe. Then I went back to my own bed for a few hours. Then I woke up around 3:00 and went to check on him and listen to the breathing some more...and while I was in there, Julia had some kind of bad dream and woke up calling for me, so I took her out of the room so Alex wouldn't wake up, and consented to let her watch a cooking show for a little while. I think all she really wanted was my undivided attention - she chattered on and on through the whole show while I tried not to fall asleep. Back to bed at 4, and I crawled back into Alex's bed (it's a double bed, so there's plenty of room) and listened to the breathing some more until I fell asleep. I woke up to find him watching me.

"Good morning, Mommy," he said with his usual good cheer, and patted me on the blanket.

Clearly my technique of briefly sleeping (or not sleeping) in a variety of locations kept him breathing well through the night.