My Life as an Asthma Mom

Urgent Care Doc asked if my daughter was a "dripper" when she used her nebulizer. You know, I've never heard of my daughter called that before, but.....okaaaaaaay.    Apparently Urgent Care Doc didn't mean that in a BAD way. We were at Urgent Care last fall because we were on vacation and didn't pack our nebulizer. It was a short 3 day trip to grandma's and my teenage daughter Kitty had packed her albuterol inhaler, so I wasn't too worried.  But Kitty had a cold and we had a major change in elevation. Those two things combine must have made her feel that her albuterol inhaler just wasn't helping.  So, Mean Mom that I am -  I dragged her to the Urgent Care.  Urgent Care Doc could tell that she needed a breathing treatment and I sheepishly admitted that we hadn't packed our nebulizer and that's why we were there.  The Doctor was really nice about it and assured me that I wasn't a bad parent. She went off to get the ne...

Ever the science nerd, I love learning about new things. In fact, when my kids see me watching Frontline or another show on PBS, they say, "Looks like Mom is on Nerd Watch again." I'll take that as a compliment! My colleague is an epidemiologist in an asthma program and sent a link to a video from PBS News Hour. The video talks about how stressful childhood experiences can actually CAUSE asthma. Now, I knew that stress could cause (or trigger) an asthma attack  But I didn't realize that stress could actually cause kids to develop asthma in the first place! Experts at the National Institutes of Health say,  "The exact cause of asthma isn't known. Researchers think some genetic and environmental factors interact to cause asthma, most often early in life."  In our case, it's genetic. It runs on both sides of the family. I have allergies and asthma, as do all 3 of our kids. Many family members on Hubby's si...

Having a child in the hospital can really rock your world. I should know - my kids were hospitalized 12 times when they were younger (including 2 times in ICU when my son almost died.) It seems like my kids were ALWAYS sick when they were little. They would wake up with a runny nose and I would think, "Oh great....here we go again!" Their runny nose would quickly turn into a nasty cough that required many breathing treatments with the nebulizer.  And of course, the kids would always get worse at night! After carefully watching them for hours, there would come a point where we knew we were in over our heads and needed medical help. By then, we were sleep deprived parents driving one of the kids to the Emergency Department while Fabulous Neighbor stayed at home with the other kids. (You can learn the warning signs of "When to Go to the ER if Your Child Has Asthma" from Nemour's hospital.)   I have a hard time when I don't get enough sle...