WOW!! I know most everyone knows that asthma is super common and more and more people are diagnosed with it all the time, but what most people do not know (unless they have asthma or a loved one with asthma) is that it sucks big time! I grew up with a brother who had asthma, so I thought it was no big deal. We dealt with it and he is a wonderful brother. He still has asthma, but he knows his triggers and how to deal with them. Then I had kids. What a difference that makes! Christopher was diagnosed with asthma and severe allergies when he was about a year old. Never fun and hard to watch your child struggle to breathe. However, we started to figure out what his triggers were and now he does pretty well. My child is much like my brother, allergic to everything under the sun. Chris is allergic to dogs and cats, Christmas trees, tree nuts, peanuts, the list goes on. Again, now that we know, we can avoid or prepare for any issues.
Then along came Cassidy and Barry. Neither one of my youngest kids had any breathing issues until Cassidy got pneumonia in second grade. (She is in sixth grade now.) She was diagnosed with asthma that May. I have Christopher. I know how to deal with asthma in a kid. Boy was I wrong! Cassidy is so different than Chris. I still do not know what her triggers are. She has been in the hospital eleven times since third grade. She misses lots of school and hates that she does. She cries and apologizes to me because she is always sick. How do you help your child with that one?
This school year has been rough. We are in the last week of the first quarter and she has missed about 20 days of school. She has been to our primary care doctor repeatedly and to her asthma specialist at least once a week. She ended up in the hospital last week because of her asthma. She is finally back in school, but she is not allowed to go out for recess or participate in gym because of her wheezing. She is still on oral steroids. She has been on the steroids for pretty much the whole months of September and October (at least what we have gotten through.)
Here is a list of what we have done the past month to try to help Cassidy:
1. Urgent Care with her primary care doctor on a Monday.
2. Appointment with her asthma specialist on Thursday.
3. Follow up with her primary care doctor on Tuesday. He put her on an antibiotic.
4. Appointment with her asthma specialist on Thursday. He has me call him that afternoon so he could check up on her.
5. Appointment with her asthma specialist on Friday. (The following day to see how she was.)
6. A bad weekend. She started coughing so badly, she was throwing up.
7. Back to her asthma specialist on Monday. He put her in the hospital.
8. Hospital visit from Monday through Wednesday. On O2, but no IV much to Cassidy's delight.
9. Appointment with asthma specialist on Thursday.
10. Back to school on Monday.
11. Appointment with her primary care doctor on Tuesday.
12. Appointment with her asthma specialist Thursday (today).
Nine doctor's appointments in 3 weeks. No child should have to do that! During her hospital stay, her asthma specialist decided that she would have to be put on a different medication. A shot, twice a month that costs $800 a shot. He is going to fight with our insurance to make sure she gets approved.
Here is the way he let me know she needed this medication: "We need this medication. It will change her life. She will not need oral steroids as much and will feel better. We want her to survive her childhood."
Never something a parent wants to hear! Wait, you mean my daughter's asthma is so bad it might kill her with out this medicine!! You better get it approved, the quicker the better. I want her around for a long time.
I have always known that asthma can be deadly, but in my experience it is treatable and the people I love will be okay. I call Cassidy a brittle asthmatic. Just like with brittle diabetics, her asthma is very hard to control and we have no idea what really triggers it. Now I am praying this medicine is approved quickly and she really does improve!
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