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.