Asthma moms! Are you taking care of yourself?

With 25 years of parenting under my belt, you would think that I would have learned by now how to take care of myself AND my kids, but nope.

I'm in the hospital again, having some tests run.

Apparently years of chronic stress have taken a toll on my poor little body.

As mom to 3 kids with asthma, we have had a LOT of stress over the years. My two youngest kids were hospitalized 12 times for asthma (2 were ICU.)

When my kids were little, it seemed like they were ALWAYS sick! If they would come home from school with a runny nose, I would start to panic. For us, it would just be a matter of time before all the other cold symptoms would start (sneezing, coughing and wheezing). 

We knew where to find all the after hours pediatrician offices!

But wait, there's more!

When you have asthma, a cold or the flu can easily turn into pneumonia.

And for us, that would mean a 3 day hospital stay. But we also had two other kids at home, so how do we juggle all of that? 

 

Who could pick them up from school? Take them to scouts? Dance? Drive to Target at 10:30 at night (on the way home from my turn at the hospital) because the new semester was starting and my son needed shorts for gym class? 

 

True story by the way.......

Throw in a car accident or two, black mold in my house, six family members dying and the odd assortment of every day stress of being a mom, and it's no wonder my health suffers!

As part of the pre-flight announcements, the flight attendants will always tell you that if the cabin suddenly loses pressure, an oxygen mask will drop. They tell you to put your oxygen mask on first before you help your child.

How many of us do that? Our first instinct is to put on our child's oxygen mask first, then take care of ourselves. 

That sounds like the life of a mom in so many ways. We make sure everyone else is fed, dressed and off to school. We take kids to piano lessons, swimming lesson and attend their band concerts. In between we put in a full day at the office (or a full day of taking care of kids at home.)

With kids with a chronic illness like asthma, you throw in all of the medical stuff on top of that and its no wonder we have a hard time keeping up - let alone time to take care of ourselves.   

For all of you asthma moms - what have you found to help you handle stress?

Yoga? Funny movies? A bike ride or walk? Chocolate?

Comment below - maybe you can spark an idea for another asthma mom. And together, we can take a moment for ourselves!