"if you drink, I think you deserve a few glasses of wine"

This mornings blog was written and posted in a sleepy stupor! I was exhausted. I knew today was going to be rough. 3 nebs between 6am and 11am proved it. That is the point where I "call it". If you can't go more then 2 hours without being nebbed then you need to get your asthmatic lungs to a doctor. So, I called Nancy, for that little push to get my act together and get him in. I dropped Alorah with my mom (that is a whole other story for tomorrow-maybe, if I have the energy). and headed downtown to the hospital. They have a great peds unit. He did not. did not. did NOT. want to go to the doctor. Can I stress that enough? he didn't want to go and I'm a mean mommy because I made him. Four year olds have a way of making you pay, especially when said 4-year old is hyped up on albuterol. Imagine giving your child 3 espressos, that is pretty much what albuterol does to them. It makes their hearts race, they bounce off walls, and they can be very angry. Imagine your child on their absolute worst day in their worst mood and multiply it by 10 and that was my child. Good times. We get to the hospital (same one all my kiddos where born at) and get checked in. He manages to scatter under chairs, over short walls, into corners, and pretty much make an a-s-s out of his extremely embarassed mother. I try to explain, he is on albuterol, he isn't normally like this, but I don't know if anyone was convinced. They just looked at me, with pitty in their eyes, and I felt about -- that big. Fun. I finally manage to pounce him and set him in the chair so that the nurse can take his vitals. His temp is 95 (hello, are you sure he's alive?) and his pulse-ox was 94 (not terrible but not great when you consider he had 3 nebs before then). He weighed in at 37 pounds...skinny boy! We get back to the room and the doctor eventually comes in. She goes over his history, when he was diagnosed? 4 months. Ever in the hospital? NICU grad. Ever on oxygen? for 5 weeks. and on and on. Has he ever seen a pulminologist? Not yet, but his doc is very agressive with asthma.

She asks when his last chest x-ray was. He hasn't had one since he was in the NICU. Which, I never thought about. Alorah has had quite a few. She orders one, gives him a neb there to see what it does, and tells me we'll discuss it more when she gets backed. She leaves me in my 6x6 room of chaos with possessed albuterol boy, the room I've already been in for a half an hour, the room I want to run away from. Far away. After threatening to hold him down, not joking, he finally agrees to do the neb willingly. He whines and complains the.whole.time. Finally that part is over. He managed not to break their nebulizer, or my arms. We head down for the x-ray. Whoo wee. Things get really fun. He runs and jumps and catapults himself off of the waiting room chairs. I had to wrap my arms around him, to restrain him, and he gets himself grounded from the computer for a week. He is screaming in my arms "I'm sweaty!" "I don't want to be grounded" "LET ME GO". yeah. Great times. Stuck in a basement waiting room with that. The woman at the desk takes pity on me, with a "wow, better you then me" look, and brings in a coloring book and crayons. She tries to get albuterol possessed boy to give her five as a sign of agreement that he will no longer abuse his poor exhausted mother. albuterol possessed boy refuses. She is at a loss and sets it on a table, and tells me she's sorry with her eyes. I nod and tell her thank-you. He actually did really well for the x-ray. I almost heard the angels singing h'alleluia. We get to go back to the waiting room. This time there are people. Oh yeah, great. I manage to keep him from going nuts and we eventually get to go back to the 6x6 room. I'm actually thankful. Once we get there he melts down. There was a play area, for general waiting, that we had to pass on the way to the actual x-ray waiting room. He had it in his albuterol possessed mind that we would go there. Why didn't we go there? How dare I not take him there. What kind of mother was I? He told me. A very very mean one. I manage to distract him with the toy on the wall. He falls for it. When the doctor comes back in she tip-toes around him saying "oh, he is quiet". Yeah, that lasted about a millisecond more. On que he was no longer silent. Or still. He was OVER IT. He has to sit and let her listen to her. He doesn't comply willingly. She actually mentions something about a padded room. That perked his ears, having never heard such a term, he says over and over "I don't WANT to be locked in a padded room". I said "Shoot, give ME the padded room! I can sleep there!" We had to calm him down and tell him we where kidding. Big bad mommy was even bigger and badder for laughing. Sorry dude. It was funny. She told me, I don't know if you drink but you deserve a few glasses of wine. lol. If only we had some in the house. I may have actually indulged. His pulse-ox right after the x-ray was 95. He is maintaing and stable but asthma can spiral so she gives him a mega dose of steroids and he will be on it for 2 more days. She told me that when she looked at the x-ray she noticed something that happens with some asthmatics. His ribs are actually pushed further apart then normal due to the hyper inflation of the asthma. It won't cause him any harm, but man, that had to be at least a little painful. For them to actually have seperation. One more notch on the I HATE asthma belt.

Now, oooh boy, I get to deal with 'roid rageing albuterol possessed boy. The only thing worse then albuterol is steroids. It makes them, in a word, crazy. Angry one minute, a sobbing mess the next. It's gonna be a long weekend.

oh, we went and got a new humidifier when we got his 'scrip filled, he picked the dragon. Cute. The ONLY cute I saw today.

I think I may actually take a xanax. Mama is toast!!!
Mama took the Xanax and is waiting for the zen. (only the 3rd pill in my life...but it does work!) Sometimes cathartic writing only goes so far.