Rather than starting with my first child, I'll start with my first diagnosis.  Smarty Jones was a "late preemie" and only missed the NICU because his mother refused to let him go.  He was born small, and while he has lengthened, he has stayed just as skinny as can be.  He has also been croupy since he was a baby.  Every time he gets a cold, it turns into something worse.

Last year some time, we started having to take his breathing issues to the ER.  He would get a cold, then get croup, and then stop being able to breathe.  After our second trip to the ER, the pediatrician put him on albuterol inhalers.  For the next six months, it was cold-croup-albuterol-steroids-ER.

Finally, I got a call from my insurance company's telephone advice nurse.  She informed me that the "reactive airway disease" we'd been treating was asthma by any other name and that I needed to find a pediatrician who would put him on daily nebulizer treatments.

Well, I might not trust Google advice, but a stranger on the telephone has got to be right...right?  In fact, she was.  My own pediatrician, once questioned, agreed to put him on daily treatments, with a second medication and orders for twice daily any time he gets a cold.

So my first diagnosis was asthma, and my first therapy: respiratory therapy.  Every morning my 4 year old puts on his Darth Vader mask and breathes along to the theme from Zooboomafoo.  On the other hand, we haven't been back to the ER and that can only be a good thing!

Tags: Asthma Therapy ER Preemie

Bookmark: