Wow, I’m tired. We stayed up too late last night listening to election reports on WTOP even though we knew very well the silly thing wouldn’t be over by morning. 😛 Even given the late night, I was doing ok until the girls’ doctor’s appointment.
When we went in a couple of days ago, the girls both had colds. Both of them seemed to have reached the peak of their sickness, and I told the doctor I was planning on stopping their Xopenex treatments (a medicine similar to albuterol, for those of you with asthma experience) because their coughing had subsided. They still need to have a nebulizer treatment of Pulmicort once a day through cold season, but stopping Xopenex would mean I could go from three treatments a day (one of them being quite long) to just the one a day. I stopped their Xopenex that day, but they were coughing again before I knew it, so I started again the next morning.
This morning, I heard them coughing as they were waking up. When I went in to get them, I noticed that Branwen was wheezing.
Now, I had already been considering taking them in to check their ears. At Alexis’ appointment, her ears had had some fluid in them, and I had seen Branwen messing with hers a bit, too. The wheezing pretty much made up my mind. When I called the pediatrician’s office, the receptionist was very soft-spoken until I mentioned the wheezing at which point her voice became very crisp. “Bring her in at 10:10. It’s our first available appointment,” she said. I explained that it may have just been morning drainage causing the wheezing, but she insisted that we come in as soon as possible.
I honestly thought the doctor would agree that it was just drainage and that would be that. Instead, he listened to Branwen’s chest and said, “Yes, she’s definitely wheezing.” He proceded to tell me to start a second dose of Pulmicort during the day and up the Xoponex treaments to four times a day for Branwen.
There are both short-term and long-term stresses for me here. Short-term, there’s scheduling difficulties. I have to wait at least 4 hours between breathing treatments. Some people can give their children treatments as they sleep, but we haven’t been able to do that with Branwen other than when she was very sick. That being the case, I’ll need to make sure we’re downstairs by 8 AM (possible, but not easy) at which point I’ll have to give her the first treatment before breakfast (which never makes anyone happy). The second treatment will be at noon making lunch later than usual. The third will be at 4 PM cutting naptime short by a half hour or so. The fourth will be at 8 PM, and since that one is a long one (both the Xoponex and Pulmicort together) it’ll probably keep them from getting to bed on time, too. I don’t know which of the first two treatment times I’ll choose to be a longer treatment; one of them will have to be if I’m going to use the Pulmicort twice a day and don’t want to be doing five treatments instead of four. As you can see, this is not going to be a stress-free process. For those of you who are thinking, “So lunch is moved by a few minutes. Who cares?” the problem there is that all three of us have minor issues when our blood sugar gets low (as I think a lot of people do). If we’re late for a meal, the girls and I have trouble keeping up positive attitudes, which means there’s a lot of fussing, whining, and temper tantrums. It makes for an unpleasant hour or so.
Side note: this is exactly why I get so irritated when people bring their coldy babies into the church nursery instead of keeping them home. It may just be a cold to them, but when my child catches it, we have to jump through all sorts of hoops to prevent more serious problems. (Not to mention that cold symptoms can indicate something worse, and we don’t always find out they have something worse until a few days after the “cold” has started.)
The long-term stress I have has to do with the whole asthma diagnosis. Up until now, there was no hard and fast evidence that Branwen had asthma. The doctor wanted to assume that she did because that’s safer than assuming otherwise, but the only time she really had a lot of trouble was when she had pneumonia. Other than that, she’s had a few early warning signs (like nighttime coughing when she had mild colds), but she hadn’t had any other obvious wheezing episodes. Basically, I was acting as if she had asthma (upon doctor’s orders) while still hoping she might not. My hopes aren’t so high now. I know it can be controlled. I know it’s not severe… at least not yet. It’s still a downer, and it makes me feel tired.
On that happy note, I think I’ll go and get some rest. Branwen should be sleeping (though I’ve heard her fuss on and off) and Alexis is watching a video. I should take advantage of the break while I can. 🙂