Asthma or Anxiety?

'Mom, I can't breathe.'  'Mom, it's hard for me to breathe.'  'Mom, I'm not kidding.'  This is what I heard for 3 hours Friday morning.  Nick was in school, trying to stay in class, but went to see the nurse 4 times. Yes, 4 times in 3 hours. Nick is asthmatic so this is not unusual.  What is unusual is there were none of the normal triggers present (dramatic changes in the weather, illness).   On the 4th visit, I called the peds and got an appointment later in the day and sent him back to class.

At lunch time, I met him at the cafeteria.  He was uncomfortable with his table.  The first day of lunch he had a peanut-free table, but was to share the table with another class.  He was worried the other students would have peanut butter.  He shared this within in minutes of getting home.  I immediately sent an email to the teacher and principal and asked to meet to correct this.  Within minutes, I had a response from the principal (our school is pretty amazing when dealing with his food allergy).  His table will be changed.  I met Nick at the cafeteria.  He now has a table that is strictly for his class and is peanut-free.  It is moved away from the other tables to eliminate the risk of contact with peanut products (Nick is contact allergic).  As soon as the table situation was handled, Nick became his outgoing self again. I watched him interact with peers and advocate for himself telling each peer that they were welcome to sit with him if they didn't have peanut butter.

After lunch, it was off to the doctor's office.  He hadn't complained of trouble breathing since lunch, but I didn't want to take any chances.  ***Not-so-much Mom of the Year Moment*** I once made him wait to go to the doctor because I thought he was just trying to get out of school when in fact he had pneumonia***  Needless to say, I don't wait anymore.  He was given a clean bill of health....

Hmmm.... we talked on the way home about feelings of nervousness and difficulty breathing and how they kind  of feel the same.  He finally told me he was just feeling really, really nervous about his lunch table.  Since our bullying incident in May, Nick has had a greater awareness of his food allergy, but apparently along with the awareness has come anxiety.

We are now in the process of trying to identify a professional to help him with his anxiety about his food allergy and how to tell if it's anxiety or asthma.  Just one more step in this journey.

First Day of School... Hoping it ends this way too!

Dear Prednisone....

Dear Prednisone,

First, let me start by saying thank you.  Thank you for coming to our rescue each time my child can't breathe. You truly are an amazing little pill.  You allow me to be able to sleep at night! Because of you, I don't have to lay for hours listening to make sure he is breathing.  I will always be incredibly grateful.

HOWEVER, I am little disappointed of your dictatorship around my house.  The dependency I have on you irritates me and apparently my a child as well. YOU control my house for 5 (5 really, really loooong days).  My child has packed his bags to move out of the house more times than I can count. Not to mention the suitcase of food he has decided he needs to have with him at all times.  He demands the tv, more wood on the fire because he cold.  He climbs the walls, literally... well at the least the stone fireplace which, in turn, makes his sisters think they can too.  The two year old tantrums that are thrown more times than a bouncy ball off the wall to see if he can hit his sisters in head... yeah, I'm so done with those too.

Here's what I propose:

• Make your liquid partner taste amazing. I've smelled you before (I can't bring myself to taste you, even for the sake of my child.)  The cherry scented liquid doesn't quite cover up the cow manure smell.  Neither does it cover up the horrible taste judging from the chocolate chaser and glass of milk I have to have ready when giving a dose.  HELLO~ Bubblegum is an amazing flavor for little kids.  They will love you just for the taste.  
• Create a sense of AWESOMENESS in my child.  I will allow you to dictate my house forEVER if you can do just this one thing.  Parents everywhere will be demanding you.  Side Effects:  May cause a sense of awesomeness in your child, not irritability, increased appetite, just plain awesomeness.
• If you can't manage the above, please offer a complimentary supply of Xanax, Valium, Klonopin or a bottle of wine with each prescription.  Really, for what you put us through, us moms should be happy for a portion of those 5 days. Don't you think?

Sincerely,
Steroid -Crazed Mothers
(who have secretly built their own tree house to hide in and consume a beverage (or beverages) of  her choice)

Jitters

I'm not sure what is worse the anticipation for eye appointments or the allergist appointments.  I get the pre-appointment jitters for the eye appointments because I don't know what they are going to tell me.  Is the eye still the same? Are her pressures good?  Will we increase or decrease patching time?  Anything could change.  For the allergist appointments, I get the pre-appointment jitters, because NOTHING is going to change. He will ALWAYS be severely allergic to peanuts and he will ALWAYS have asthma.  Allergist appointments are reality in full color. They are the appointments that tell me no matter what I do, I can't make this better or make it go away.
Overall, the appointment went well.  Peanut allergy is the same and we are to continue avoidance of peanuts and all nuts when we are in public.
Asthma is hit or miss.  This beautiful WNY weather is terrible for is asthma.  We are currently using both his  maintenance inhaler and his rescue inhaler.  This will likely continue until June.  At least I now know what are likely triggers for him and what helps.  We will continue with our current treatment and follow up in a year.
Proud mom moment at the visit:  The allergist told Nick he seemed very mature for his age regarding his allergy and asthma.  It's nice to hear.  It's not that I take credit for it,. Nick has had this since he was 8 months old so he knows no other way.   It just reinforces that we are doing something right with educating and trying to teach him responsibility.
While the appointment went well, real life living with a peanut allergy gets harder for me.  We try to do 'normal' things, but as he gets older, it gets harder.  Easter Sunday we decided to stay for brunch at church.  BIG mistake.  The brunch was great, but Nick couldn't eat anything, but fruit.  And at 8, he's just not that satisfied with fruit for breakfast.  There were peanuts/nuts on almost everything and the food that didn't have nuts were sitting next nut filled food.  We graciously at our fruit, excused ourselves and headed off to McDonalds.  So sometimes trying to do normal things, just doesn't work.  I'll keep practicing and by the time he graduates, it will all be normal :)

The EYE has taught me that accessorizing is cool (even for boys). Here's a shout out to two of our favorite 'accessories':

A pencil case from PBTeen (I love that store).  Seriously, this case only cost $3.99 (personalization is $7) and can hold 2 epi-pens, 2 inhalers, a spacer, 4 doses of single dose Benadryl and 4 packets of handi-wipes. It goes where ever we go and can clip onto bags.

Survival straps is our latest Medical ID purchase.  Some argue that it looks too fashionable and can't easily be identified as a Medical Alert bracelet.  I say, whatever he'll wear consistently is much better than the bracelet laying on his dresser.  Survival straps lets you  custom design the bracelet. So, of course, his bracelet is the color of our monster truck.  And the price isn't too bad.

Photo courtesy of Survival Straps.com 

Making Peace with Asthma

Memorial Day 2006
It started out as a fantastic day. Parades, outdoor play, a healthy  2 year old boy.  By noon, Nick was coughing, by 3 o'clock he was coughing a lot and by 5 o'clock, I was calling the doctor.  I was admittedly naive about asthma so when the nurse was asking questions, I couldn't really answer them.  She finally asked that I put the phone to him so she could listen to him breathe.  By 5:30, I was taking him to the ER.  

This WAS my first rodeo at the ER with my child.  Blood work, breathing treatment, prednisone, x-rays.... exhausting for a mom and her child.  The diagnosis- Asthma.  We were sent home with a handful of scripts and told to follow up with the pediatrician.  While signing the discharge papers, I was told that the prednisone may make him irritable and/or make him hyper.  That might have been the understatement of the century, kind of like when the doctor says you might feel a "little pinch."  He was fun at first on the medicine, wired, but fun.

For the past 7 years, we've been figuring out/managing his asthma.  At first, I  admit, I wasn't consistent with his medications.  I let coughs go untreated for too long.  I let symptoms go unnoticed hoping the asthma would go away.  It hasn't.  So now I'm making peace with it.  Remember-Breathing...Good.  Asthma flair up....not so much.

So here's what I've learned over the past 7 years (primarily through trial and error and sometimes epic fails):

• Asthma is quick to worsen. If I don't act quickly with his albuterol, we will be at the ER within in a day
• His maintenance inhaler is a must.
• I have a love/hate relationship with Prednisone. Five days of extreme irritability is almost too much to handle. 
• A simple cough will send me into mommy-panic-mode.
• Everyone has an opinion on steroid use. Here's my take on it- good breathing is a beautiful sound and if takes steroids to get us to that point, I'm all in.
• Extreme cold to extreme warm is great for our mood but, the devil for his asthma.  It almost guarantees some sort of intervention.
• My copay and 30 minute commute to the doctor's office for them to say 'Nope, he's fine. It's just a virus.' is worth every minute and every penny.
• Nick will hate every morning reminder to take his inhaler.
• He will also learn to use asthma as an excuse when he loses a race against his sister.    

Something is working though.... We have not had any ER visits in almost 2 years.  Yay! I recently started using a simple Peak Flow Meter for him.  He averages about 150 on what I call 'a good lung day' (average for a kid his age is 220, I think).  It's just another tool for me to tell how well he is doing.  If he falls below a certain number, we up his inhaler.  We follow up with the allergist annually and his pediatrician every 6 months and revamp his Asthma Action Plan.

Daily we work together to make peace with asthma.  What means for him and what it doesn't.  It just another thing we incorporate into our crazy, normal life.