Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Good thing they took my blood pressure earlier this afternoon...

because I can't imagine how high it is this evening.

Today started out a great day. We dropped by my friend Cheryl's house to pick up snacks for our play date, since her daughter was sick. Then we headed to the park and met our friends to play in the beautiful sunshine. While we were there, Jack had a dirty diaper, and started SCREAMING when I changed it. He's had an awful diaper rash... turned blister... which broke the other day and started bleeding. Ouch. I'd had it with the rash- decided to call the doctor on our way home- and made an appointment for late this afternoon.

Meanwhile, Jack was cranky, so I did what any good pregnant mommy would do, and took him to Aunt Allison so I could go to my OB checkup in peace. The checkup went great, as the title of this post alludes. Charlie is getting big and kicking with more frequency.

I got Jack home for a quick nap, then it was off to the doctor. Jack has had a little cold and cough, so I asked her to check that out since we have to fly soon. I had a scary moment Sunday night, before Jack even had so much as a runny nose, where he seemed to be breathing funny in his sleep. It worried me enough that I had him sleep with me, and then when he got this cold I chalked it up to congestion. Then today as he was screaming he made a wheezing sound each time he gasped for a breath. I couldn't tell if he was hoarse or something worse, just glad we were heading to the doctor soon.

The doctor listened to him breathe and heard a definite wheezing. Then she looked in his ear (which was infected, by the way) and he screamed, doing the wheezy gaspy thing, and she immediately said: asthma. I grew up with asthma, so I'm pretty familiar with the routine. But thrown into the world of a toddler with asthma, I was introduced to a nebulizer, albuterol, and the lovely fish mask that's supposed to somehow stay on Jack's face. Ha!

I then had her look at the rash, by this point an afterthought, and it looked so bad to her she called in another doctor for a consult and prescribed an antibiotic cream. I felt like the worst mom ever! My poor poor sick boy. We left the doctor with a nebulizer, I dropped Jack at home with Mike, and by the time I returned home from the pharmacy, I'd collected all of this:

DSC03916

Jack's first neb treatment was a blog post in itself. I'd hoped to get a cute picture of him chilling, watching Barney with his fish mask on- but alas, it wasn't to be. Instead of a picture imagine me, pinning Jack and his arms to my chest, while he thrashes about for 15 minutes and screams. Fun times. :-)

I know we'll get used to all of this, but tonight was a little overwhelming, and I'm feeling sad for my sweet boy. Any tips for the three or four nebulizer treatments we have to do tomorrow?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have a tip. Sedate him. :)

Anonymous said...

I have a tip. Sedate him. :)

amosclarkson said...

Hey Tori. Sorry to hear about Jack's asthma. Eli had Bronchilitis caused by RSV when he was 6 months and had to use a nebulizer for awhile. Here's the post I wrote about it: http://theclarksonspot.blogspot.com/2008/03/doing-better-but-still-sicky-boy.html

I remember he fought it sometimes and not other times, but I can imagine it is harder with a toddler. Some ideas I had were:
-if he will need this for quite awhile maybe have him pick out a special "breathing treatment" chair, book, video, stuffed animal, etc. so it is a special and almost fun time. This will also help since he actually has to sit still during the treatments.
-pre-teach A LOT about the treatments and try to make them sound fun. Talking about it throughout the day can help prepare him for them. You may feel like a broken record but it may help.
-google or go to kid asthma websites as there must be ideas. You can't be the only one struggling with this!!
-maybe reward him afterwards for a good job and he'll learn to connect a treat and do it with less fuss

Just some ideas. Let us know how he does!!

IncogKnito said...

Awe, I'm sorry to hear about Jack. I'm sorry it was a struggle, so I hope it will get easier for you. I'm keeping you guys in my thoughts. Love you!