Asthma Sucks

Alorah and Vance are both asthmatic. Alorah's is viral induced, she got a bad case of RSV a couple weeks after she turned 2. I was pregnant with Vance and we spent a whole night in the ER. She had RSV and a double ear infection, it was terrible and so scary because before then I didn't know what having a child with asthma meant. The damage from that one illness will be with her for the rest of her life. People think of a common cold and they don't ever think that it can do so much damage but RSV can and did. It scared her lungs and from then on out she has had it. Vance was diagnosed at 4 months, he had his first round of steroids then, it was heartbreaking. He had Synagis injections every month for his first winter and spring. Because he was born with weak lungs and had to be on oxygen for 5 weeks he qualified for them and I'm still grateful to this day. That December he got his first mild cold and ended up on steroids, albuterol and pulmicort. Having 2 kids with it has been incredibly trying because their common trigger is the common cold. Think of all the colds little kids get, and then imagine knowing with that sniffle they are probably going to start to wheeze and retract and cough. Then it is up to you to know when to give them their albuterol, how often to give it, and that always trying decision of when to start them on oral steroids. I think anyone with a child that has a chronic illness can speak to the amount of stress it brings. Vance's asthma is much more mild then Alorah's. He doesn't have a problem around animals, smoke from a fire, or dust. He has had fewer severe attacks probably because his asthma is a result of weak lungs, not scarred ones. Alorah has many triggers. Cold air, cats, smoke of any kind, dust, common colds, even stress can trigger one in her. Before I had children with asthma I didn't understand that an attack does not last an hour or two or even a day, they can last a week or more. Days and nights of constant worry and monitoring. I don't know how parents of diabetic children do it...I cannot imagine the stress every day of their life. Alorah had a fantastic year last year. She barely needed albuterol and did not have to do any bursts of steroids. It was awesome. We use pulmicort 2x a day to prevent attacks, it works but it doesn't stop every attack unfortunately. I thought maybe, just maybe, we would get lucky and she would "outgrow it". Right after school started they all caught a small respiratory bug and while the albuterol was enough for Vance, it wasn't for Alorah and she ended up on steroids. She finished last Tuesday. The steroids are miserable. They make her incredibly sensitive and irritable. She is just a mess when she is on them. They work though and they stop a bad asthma attack from landing her in the hospital. We always take a break from pulmicort from May-October because that time of year is easier for her and she has few problems. On Monday we went to dinner for our 8th wedding anniversary and left the kiddos with Levi's neice, Ari. She brought her puppy and the kids were outside playing with the dogs and having fun. We have a trash can out there for the ashes from the woodburning stove and they know that they are off-limits. They took advantage of Ari coming in to fix them dinner and in a matter of minutes had the entire backyard and themselves covered head to toe in the ash. When we got home I could hear Alorah wheezing from across the room and immediately hooked her up to the neb. After that and a shower her breathing got better and she was able to go to bed, but I could tell that this attack panicked her. She was really scared. I checked on her every couple hours through the night. She never started wheezing again but she was retracting pretty badly. I ended up taking her to urgent care, her pulse-ox was 93 and she was retracting even with the albuterol. So, here we are on round #2 of steroids in as many weeks. It's rough because now she is aware of it. She understands that she needs daily nebs and that sometimes her breathing is bad and it affects her. Vance was fine, even being around all that ash-dust. She is finally not retracting today and has 2 more left of her steroid burst. We had to start pulmicort again and we go see her doc. next week. They require flu shots every year, and they always will. The flu for them could be tragic... It isn't something I would normally get for them but every October we go in and they have them because if they didn't and got the flu I would never forgive myself. We don't go anywhere without the inhaler, we don't go on trips without a bottle of steroids for both of them, our lives have adjusted to these things but it still makes me sad. I wish that they didn't have to deal with it. I've realized that Alorah most likely will never outgrow it, Vance might, but Alorah has been fighting with it for 5 years now... We manage it and live with it but I don't think it is ever easy to accept when your kiddo has a chronic illness that will affect them for forever...

Toby curled up with her when she did her nebby the other day, it melted my heart.