At-home medical equipment!!!! C'mon, now, are you really surprised to see a post relating to some sort of health ailment?! I told a friend today that if our house were not so old, I might consider investigating to see if it was built on the former site of some sort of toxic waste dump with how healthy we have all been lately! :)
But it is true, we are now the owners of one "Nebulizer". In fact, the reason I have not posted about all of our wonderful Thanksgiving activities is because the past three days have been spent in a rather sleepless fashion with several trips to the doctor because Liam apparently has Asthma. The little guy started wheezing and whistling a few days ago - it was not like croup, and was not quite a cold. My instincts told me it COULD be asthma....coupled with the fact that Patrick had asthma when he was little so it just all sounded familiar. I did not express my suspicion to the doctor because I did not want him to think I was some loony mom who overreacted. But after he listened to Liam's chest he raised the possibility himself. Long story short, Liam had to have a breathing treatment at the pediatrician today and we were sent home with our very own machine and a massive supply of albuterol (spelling?). In fact, I am up right now because Nick and I just had to give him another treatment as Liam awoke gasping and wheezing from his sleep.
It is REALLY hard to give a 20 month old a breathing treatment. It is pretty basic stuff as far as operation goes. A tiny mask emits a very fine cool mist for about 10 minutes. He does not even have to have the mask strapped on to his face, but I have to hold it close enough to his face so that this mist drifts up into his airways. Easier said than done. The compressor makes a very loud noise and Liam writhes around and swats at the mask constantly. He is also, shall we say, very loud in his protests. Eventually we will all get the hang of it and hopefully Liam will realize how fast it makes him feel better and he will learn to cope better. Poor little guy.
So - asthma. Pretty common, but kind of a bummer. We have to wait and see how it progresses and what his "triggers" are. It could just be the sudden change from chilly to frigid. He does not have smoke exposure or stuffed animals in his bed. I have always had allergy barriers on the mattresses etc. Who knows where this stuff comes from, right? Maybe he will just get it once a year, maybe it will be more frequent. Whatever happens, it is manageable.
An interesting coincidence is - my study at Yale was all about Asthma in adolescents. Mostly we focused on it in minority and urban youth populations......I just realized that I am full of stats about asthma and the socio-economic impact of treatments in urban and underprivileged youth. I can tell you about spirometer readings in the Hartford Public School district. Guess I need to brush up on some other details as a Mommy, though! :)
I will post fun pics from the holiday weekend soon. We all had such a WONDERFUL visit with Nick's sisters Ava, Madelyn and her fiancee - the wonderful Joe. It was awesome.
I leave you with a funny story about Kate:
Today in the car we were singing "Santa Claus is Coming to Town". We were singing together and as the end of the song approached, I decided to jazz up the ending....it is hard to translate in typing, but I kind of made it a big band kind of finish..."Santa Claus is coming, you know that Santa is coming! Oh Santa....big Santa is coming tooooooooooo" (I am crescendoing here and have a lot of jazzy feeling in the voice) Kate interjects with a VERY loud and emphatic "NO NO NO MOM!!!!! NO MOM!!!! DOOOON"T!!!!!!! DON'T DO A BIG FINISH!!!!!!!!!" I literally almost choked with laughter. I asked her "No big finish, huh? What's a big finish?" She goes "YOU KNOW! What you were DOING! When you get all loud and change the words and make it all long and taking forever at the end....THAT is a big finish. Don't DO that, MOM!!!!!!!!!!"
Well, pardon me! No Judy Garland moments for me, I guess. :)
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