My Life as an Asthma Mom

  There are a LOT of awareness month, but this one is the most important to me.  It literally changed my life, and the life of my 3 kids. 23 years ago, our lives were forever changed when my middle son ended up in the hospital, and the respiratory therapist told  us that he has asthma.  What??!! But I asked my pediatrician if Son #2 has asthma, and he said no. He said it was "just a virus". The respiratory therapist said, "It's asthma alright - that's why he's being admitted to the hospital.." And life took a left when I had planned to go right.  Eventually, all 3 kids (and I) were diagnosed with asthma.  We are a family of 5. All 5 have allergies (year-round), 4 have asthma, and 2 of us have food allergies. I went back to college to get another degree, then changed professions to work full time as a Health Educator and Certified Asthma Educator. I now work for a national non profit and provide allergy & asthma education to people across the U.S.  ...

  Now that we're in year 3 of COVID, I know most people have gone back to Life as Normal. But, I am still afraid of getting sick.  There's good reason for that! We are a family of 5, and 4 of us have asthma. Severe asthma. When my kids were little, they were in the hospital 12 times - and 2 of those were ICU. They had the "crash cart" outside my kid's room - and I still have PTSD because of the reoccurring stress and trauma.  The cause of being in the hospital so many times? Pneumonia (for most of them), and a few of the times the culprit was wildfire smoke.  Now that my kids are adults we still battle respiratory diseases. They haven't been in the hospital for 15 years - but we all still have Urgent Care and ER visits for asthma.  And we will - for the rest of our lives. Asthma doesn't go away. If pneumonia wasn't bad enough for us, along comes COVID. Both times we have had COVID, we have been very sick - and almost ended up back in the hospital.  Man...

  A few years ago, I coordinate an Asthma Home Visit Program.  I provided in-depth asthma education to families.I know that doctors would like to spend more time providing education to their patients, but they just don't have time.  You may have been diagnosed with asthma while in the hospital, or at a doctor's office. And the doctor can explain a LOT of things - all at once. It's like trying to drink out of a fire hydrant. When I meet with families, I try to reinforce what the doctor explained to them, and then fill in the gaps about how to control their asthma.  It's good to learn about medications and asthma triggers, but it's also important to learn how to make a home allergy & asthma friendly. When I say "home", that can mean apartment, house, trailer home, condo, whatever they consider a home. During one visit, a woman answered the door and said, "If you are going to tell me to get rid of my dog, you can just turn around and walk back out th...

 It seems like we'll never get away from COVID.  People are still getting COVID, and the number of people with Long COVID is growing. I belong to a social media group for other people with Long COVID. It's a place where people can share their symptoms, struggles, and treatment plans that worked for them.  I had COVID last year and missed a month of work. In additional to my high dose dual maintenance inhaler, I needed oral steroids, Paxlovid, and breathing treatments every 4 hours - around the clock. I had a very difficult time getting my energy level back, and my oxygen level rarely went above 91. I know that there are many ways to assess asthma, and relying only on oxygen levels isn't the best idea.  As a Certified Asthma Educator, I teach families to look at signs and symptoms too. I had fatigue, a persistent cough, shortness of breath, a hard time sleeping (unless I was propped upright), etc etc For some reason, I didn't feel like I needed oxygen.  I'll ord...

 I was watching Glass Onion and I was surprised at the ending.  I can NEVER figure out murder mysteries and am always wrong about "who done it" In fact, the movie was so fast paced that I missed a lot of things. So I decided to put on the closed captioning so I could watch it again.  I saw the scene where a character dies of anaphylaxis (oh.....is that what killed him?) But then I thought, wait a minute! You can't die that fast from an allergen! In the movie, Big Burly Guy says he "doesn't do pineapple". (I missed that the first time.) At the end of the movie, when the detective was doing a recap of what happened, he talked about how Big Burly Guy died. That the Slimy Guy had put pineapple juice into Big Burly Guy's drink It showed a clip of Big Burly Guy grabbing his throat, staggering for about 10 seconds, and then collapsing and dying Hold the phone!  Why can't movies show anaphylaxis or asthma attacks correctly? Ugh!  Death doesn't happen ins...

  One thing that always bothered me over the years with our family of 5 is where to stay for the holidays. We would usually travel hours to see a family member, who insisted that EVERYONE stay at her house. No matter that there wasn't enough room.... She would tell me that my kids could sleep on the couch, or buy an air mattress and sleep on the floor.  How is that a fun thing for the holidays? I will have kids that are sleep deprived and cranky from trying not to roll off the couch.   And 5 of us are fighting to use the one guest bathroom.  Was that a status thing for families? It was some sort of badge of honor to have children and grandchildren all under one roof? As many as you could squeeze in? One time, Family Member wanted 4 families (and their kids) to all stay at her house.  While Family Member had the luxury of a large master bedroom, complete with a walk in closet and full sized bathroom with a jetted tub.......all to herself?  Yet we were s...

 Our family has always been VERY cautious around other sick people. With a family of 5 (4 of whom have asthma), we have a habit of getting very sick - very fast. In fact, my kids were in the hospital 12 times when they were young (two of those were ICU stays.) Needless to say, we are all germaphobes. And we were germaphobes long before COVID reared its ugly head.  Since covid started, we have avoided church, family parties, receptions, weddings, and baby showers. In fact, we had friends that were supposed to come over for Thanksgiving dinner. But, the daughter was sick and coughing.  The parents said she would wear a mask  - but I knew she would have to take it off to eat. I would have to watch her like a hawk and as soon as she took her last bite of food, I would have to tell her to put her mask back on.  Either way, it would expose my family to her respiratory illness. She didn't have asthma, but she was coughing. I could just imagine how bad our cough would b...