Asthma Update:

seeing as I have gotten about 4 hours total sleep the past few nights.. this post will help with details and what not seeing as I am not very coherent on the phone!!! First off.. Broderick is doing great, he 90% out of the woods, but by Monday should be fully recovered, so we are very grateful for that!!!

Back to the beginning, both Broderick and Addison have been somewhat diagnosed.. very vague, with Allergy induced asthma. They both get a cough with allergies and usually are treated seasonally with a preventative or "controller" medication, such as advair for the boy and singular for my girl. I am not a big fan of medications, and taking it every day or twice daily for years and years bothers me, so we usually do it just in the spring to fall, then take the winter off. We have had inhalers "relievers" for when it flairs up, but they have gone unused because it usually doesn't progress beyond a cough. When Broderick was 3 we went in for a breathing treatment, and we have gone in twice to our primary physician for the same treatment and were good to go!!
On Saturday Rugby season started, and Broderick played out side in 36 degree weather for 2 hours. Weather/ outdoor alleriges and sports can all trigger asthma. This time it did, and with out the usual controller in his system he started to have issues. He coughed Sat night and I treated his allergies with benadryll.. he slept great and was coughing a little Sunday, but seemed OK. Sunday night he was up all night coughing (I didn't hear it and he didn't tell me till Monday night) so I woke up to him throwing up mucus on Monday morning. Well the kids didn't have school, so he stayed in bed, or on the couch under covers.. all the while his breathing was getting worse.. his airway constricting and very lathargic. He rested a lot, but it wasn't until the evening as he was sleeping his covers came off him and Clay saw that he was breathing funny. I checked him out and sure enough he was panting.. I took him immediately to the Childrens Hosptial ER. I thought perhaps as in the past a breathing treatment would suffice and we would be on our way home. Well, we are so grateful we caught it when we did, he oxygen leve was at 80 and should be 95 - 100.. he was breathing 65 breaths a min.. thats fast.. poor kids was sleeping all day because his body didn't have enough oxygen to do anything else.. yieks..they got him on oxygen and then we did about 5 breathing treatments, steroids, and then IV magnisium to relax his airway. This kept him from being admitted into the ICU, but we still had to be admitted. The hospital we were at is new and didn't have what we needed so Broderick had to be transported via ambulance to the Childrens Hosptial down town. He thought that was pretty cool!!! We got checked in at about 2 am and the hourly breathing treatments continued. For 14 straight hours they came in for 30 mins to treat him, then they came in to check his vitals, breathing, and then in the few min we could sleep before it started back up again, his oxygen monitor would alarm, and he would have to sit up and try and cough to get the mucus out of the way so his oxygen levels would rise. Ah.. it was tiring!! I had to take a 2 hour course on asthma with a specialist, which was great, and then by noon he was showing improvement. He was able to get off the oxygen Tue night, but needed to stay because it was taking a while for his o2 levels to stay up where they needed to be. By last night he was off the O2 and had his breathing treatments spaced 3 hours apart, and from a nebulizer to an inhaler.. which doesn't take nearly as long! We caught an hour here and there last night, love the couch/bed/flat pillow, but sleep can be made up so I wasn't to concerned!! We spent a lot of time watching tv and when he finally started to feel good, checker and cards entertained us for a while!! He didn't like being hooked up to all the monitors, and for the first day was really to tired to care! He had to pee in a container that I had to track his input and out put and then discard it for him.. joy joy!!! His privacy was a little invaded, but we made it through!!! We got discharged this afternoon and he has 3 days of steroid treatment,4 hour breathing treatments, and back on his controller meds. I have an appt. tomorrow with our primary physician for both kids, because if I have learned anything it is that it can happen out of nowhere and I don't want to be caught off guard with Addison. I know their triggers, and now we can take a more active approach to this new full blow diagnosis of Asthma.

It was a learning experience, Broderick didn't say anything because he thought he would feel better, and now I know what to look for more then before! We are so thankful for all our friends who, called to check, help shuttle the girls around, and fed my family while we were gone. I thought I was going to the ER for a few hours on Monday and didn't come home till Wed. Its good to be back, and get settled and now its time to catch up on everything.. I am going to start with a shower, sleep, then everything else, in that order!!

p.s.
I just remembered something funny.. because we were at a childrens hosptial they "dumb" down everything for the kids, which is not something I do.. we tell it like it is.. an IV is a needle in your arm that will put a tube in your vein to give you meds.. the nurse tells a story about a little tiny straw.. feeding your body.. and then the dr. was asking about his pee pees and poo poos, I think 3 different volunteers game him coloring books.. we finally got a deck of cards out of one of them.. instead of the train puzzle they were offering!! I don't blame them, there are a lot of sick little kids, just didn't realize he was almost 12 and not a little kid anymore. We would just start laughing when they left.. helped make the day a little funny!!!