Asthma

I suppose it was inevitable. Jacob has asthma. As I write this, we are sitting in the hospital room, having a nice family day out. All is well and Jacob is fine, but before we leave the hospital tomorrow, we will have a set of puffers, and Jacob will probably take these puffers every day for the rest of his life. But given my asthma and our family history, were not that surprised.

It started a couple days ago, when Jacob started to show signs of a cold. Runny nose and not sleeping very well, but we wasn't that bad so we thought for a little while that it could have been a tooth working it's way out. But later his runny nose mucus started to show green, and he was looking like it was a real cold. Last nit, he started breathing heavy and coughing and wheezing, and so we decided to take him in.

This had happened before - a couple weeks ago, the same symptoms, runny nose then shortness of breath - and we took him to the clinic. The doctor there gave him antibiotics and sent him home. They seemed to do the trick, but we kind of thought that there was more to it than that.

This time, it was late and so the clinics were closed. Tricia took Jacob to emergency, and the doctor listened to his chest and gave him a chest xray. He was on a nebulizer with epinephrine and and they gave him liquid oral prednisone. This was all in the ER. He was then admitted and put into isolation on the pediatric unit (isolation because he has a cough and there are lots of little little babies here). He had a nebulizer with epinephrine again and had a reasonable night, given a three hour late bedtime.

All through this time he has been a happy active kid. Although his breathing was very labored and he had very rough breath sounds, his pulse-ox has never been below 97 and he hasn't shown signs of not getting enough oxygen - no blue lips or anything.

This morning, the doctor came in and listened to jacob's chest again and told us that with this kind of symptom at this time of year, its most likely asthma. Having a cold can exacerbate the symptoms too, which is probably what happened to trigger the attack. This afternoon, a nurse and doctor came in and gave us the spiel about asthma, how to use puffers with aerochambers, the difference between treatment and rescue inhalers, the usual. We are in isolation because of Jacob's cough, so he's pretty stir crazy, but overall things are ok. Doctor will be in to check later tonight, and he'll probably get another dose of drugs to keep him going.

We are looking forward to going home tomorrow.

Sibling love

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Pretty cute, don't you think?



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Canada Day

We decided that this year we would actually do something for Canada Day. A good friend of mine told me about the Garden Party hosted by the Lieutenant Governor at Government House. There was lemonade, cotton candy, popcorn, the RCMP, Suzanne (a dog who was a gift to the RCMP from the Queen), bubbles, parachute games, and a band. We managed to miss all the speeches, but given the blistering heat outside, I am not sure that it was a bad thing. The kids had a great time running around and just being with all those people.

Butterfly face

At the end of June our errands found us at Old Navy. Somehow we timed our shopping with the grand reopening of the store --they had redecorated and rebranded, so they needed to celebrate. Well, among other things they were doing face painting. Sophia was all into that...









She's got the posing down to an art. Anyway, for the next week, Sophia kept asking to go back to Old Navy so she could get her face painted again. It took a bit of convincing that the face painting wasn't an everyday occurrence. She sure did look cute!

Tea for two

Nana and Papa gave Sophia a cute little tea set for her birthday. She's spent a lot of time having tea and serving lattes (yes, lattes) to everyone and anyone. Not to be forgotten, Jacob has gotten in on the action and joined Sophia at her tea table.

She's 4!

Well, Sophia celebrated her fourth birthday last week! It's hard to believe that four whole years have gone by so very, very fast. We had a wonderful time.

Sophia and a few of her friends (Owen, William, Claire and Dylan) joined her for a party at Amazing Adventures, which is a gymnastics place. The kids had an hour on the floor to do circuits, jump on the trampolines and play in the foam pit all with a coach. After expending all their
energy, we had cake and juice, and gift opening. Everyone had a great time. Sophia had chosen a "Under the Water" theme...so her cake was Ariel from the Little Mermaid, and all the goodie bags had a water/fish theme. She had a great time!


This is Jacob on the trampoline for the first time! I have a feeling that he's going to LOVE gymnastics in the fall.










This is always the most fun...the foam pit. Sophia is being thrown around, and if you look closely you can just make out Jacob's feet....he's hanging over the edge into the pit.













To make the time even more special, Nana and Papa were here from Maple Ridge (yup, they only moved three weeks ago!). We've been enjoying being with them.

Turning four also meant the not so fun experience of getting her immunizations. While there, she got weighed and measured...
WEIGHT: 42 pounds
HEIGHT: 42 inches.

Nice and easy to remember. Although I was dumbfounded when they told me she was 42 pounds! I was still thinking she was 30 pounds. Oops.











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