Monday, March 22, 2010

Breathing a sigh of...

We have had more than our fair share of illness over the last 6 months. It was a rough autumn and winter. Now that spring is here, I hope we can finally all get well.

One of the recurring themes in our house has been Sam's coughing. He has had cold after cold since the end of October. And he never seems to completely get over one before he has another. One of the really rough parts of this is that he constantly seems to have a cough, which gets worse at night, whether he has a cold or not. And he sometimes coughs hard enough to throw up - usually in bed. 

So, we haven't been sleeping well in the last several months. And this coughing just didn't seem normal. 

Today, we saw the doctor. We came prepared with a recording of some of last night's coughing, which was helpful. The doctor agreed that coughing like that is not normal and something is going on. 

Here are the basics: At Sam's age, they don't diagnose asthma for a couple of reasons, although he has asthma-like symptoms. For one, it is really hard to definitively diagnose before kids are old enough to really participate in tests. For another, a lot of kids with asthma symptoms when they are very young outgrow them and really don't have asthma later in life, although the diagnosis will never go away - which can cause problems with insurance and pre-existing conditions, etc. 

So, for now, we are treating symptoms with inhalers: we already have albuterol for when he gets wheezy with colds; now we get an inhaled steroid to hopefully clear up the inflammation which seems to be keeping him from completely getting well.

We're crossing our fingers that this does the trick. We really want to get sleep as much as we want Sam to feel good. And we're hoping he eventually outgrows the symptoms.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

A week of celebrations

It's been a while since I've posted. I've been stuck at home with sicks kids a lot lately, thus nothing much to blog about. I just hope next winter is kinder to us than this winter has been. Our spring break has been spent with vomiting, diarrhea, fevers, etc. What a way to spend a beautiful week.

But, this is a week full of celebrations, so I thought I would just mention them here:

Sunday was Pi Day
Monday was the Ides of March
Wednesday (today) is St. Patrick's Day
Friday is St. Joseph's Day
Saturday is (finally!) the First Day of Spring!

And thus, as a first day of spring gift, I would like to request health for our household. I think we've had our share and deserve to enjoy the next few months illness free.