Asthma Sucks! It Really, Really Does!!

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!

Family Tree Update

Guess what??  I am finding more family members I have not seen in years!!  I have remembered things about some of these relatives that I did not know I knew.  With most of them, I still do not know exactly how we are related, ie. cousins, niece, etc., I just know we are related.  I have been figuring this out as I update our family directory.  I am having a great time working on it, however I am kind of at a point where I need help.  Because I am not sure who is related to who and how, I cannot fill everything in the way I would like to.  Here is to hoping my newly reacquired family members will help me out.  :) 

School Is In Session!

I cannot tell a lie:  I AM SO GLAD SCHOOL HAS STARTED.  You know I love my kids, but even moms need a couple of hours once in a while to recharge.  During the summer those hours are few and far between.  Like teachers who need their summer breaks, I need my school time.  I also enjoy helping my kids with homework.  It reminds me of how much I do not remember (anyone want to explain direct objects {DO} and indirect objects {IO} to me.)  It also helps me keep my mind sharp.  (Math is my favorite!)  This year it also has told me (in eight days) how quickly things are taught now.  I do not remember learning DO and IO until high school and my oldest is only in 7th grade!  This year is also the first year that all three of my kids are excited to go to school in the morning!  Homework gets done every night.  This is a big deal because for the past two years Chris has been on a "homework strike."

Here is a quick health update:

Cassidy's asthma is at it again!  She had a major attack last Saturday in Chicago.  It was bad enough that I almost called the paramedics.  Since then she has had decent days and horrible nights.  She is up most of the night  and day, so she is extremely tired.  This week has also been very hot.  Ninety plus temps everyday with the humidity close to 90 percent.  It has made things uncomfortable for everyone.  (Some schools in the area closed early due to the heat.  They did not have AC.)  Hopefully now that the weather is cooling off she will start to feel better.

Family Tree

I have found that searching for family members you know almost nothing about is an interesting experience.  I did not realize how many Stinebaughs there have been in the United States.  From my perspective Stinebaugh is an uncommon name.  The only Stinebaughs I have ever heard of are from our family.  And now I have figured out where some of our family names have come from ~ Daniel, Samuel, etc.  These names have been around for a very long time.  And do you know how many Marys we have had in our family!!!   Even with all of that, I am enjoying every minute of of my search.

On another note, when it rains like crazy in a very short period of time DO NOT go shopping!  Parking lots flood in minutes!

Family Genealogy

Why is it that family reunions can make a person really think about where their family came from?  I think I know.  I just returned home from Oklahoma where I attended my family reunion with 45 other crazy family members.  I say crazy because most of us drove for quite a while for a one day event.  (Fyi ~ there is talk that it will be a 2 day event in 2 years! )  As always everyone asks how we are all related and it gets a little confusing.  I enjoy every bit of the confusion, but sometimes it is hard to keep track of everyone.  We have a very big family, even if only a small portion comes to the reunion.

Because no one, not even me, can keep everyone straight I decided to start a family tree.  Now mind you I have done a family directory every couple of years just to try to keep everyone current.  Although the last one I did was apparently in 2008 and so it is VERY outdated.  (Lots of new babies and marriages, etc.)  I love doing it and will continue to do it as long as I am able to, but this year I came home and went to work on a family tree.  I have only been home since Monday afternoon (I got home after 1 am Sunday night and I spent the night at my mother's house.)  There are so many different ancestry websites on the internet that will help you find people and research connections.  I have looked at lots of them and kind of got discouraged with the cost.  However while I was in OK, my cousin's sister told my about a website that allows you to go up to 250 members of your family for free.  Great!  I can get started and see how I like the program.  (Most sites I have looked at don't let you do much for free.)

Here became the problem:  Our family is just too big.  I got one branch of our Stinebaugh family into the system and was already almost out of room.  When I added the two other branches I had already written out I ran out of room.  Mind you, my great grandmother's parents had NINE kids.  I had only put in 3!  Well, the site allows you to invite family members to look at your tree and add to it, comment on it, add pictures, etc.  Now here is why my family is so terrific ~ one of my cousins asked if he could pay the fee because he thought the site was so cool and we would use it a lot.  I love my family!

As of right now we have 400 people on our tree and that is just the start.  I have been working on it a little every day and keep finding new members of our family.  So much fun!  I have a feeling that when the next reunion rolls around our tree will be gigantic!!  I cannot wait to see.

Reflections

Cassidy turned 12 today.   12!!!!!  I cannot believe how fast time is going.  The storms tonight made me remember the storms when she was born. Twelve years ago I was in the hospital in the middle of a huge storm and Cassidy decided to come.  What a stinker!  The power went out in the hospital for about 30 seconds and life got really interesting.   Cassidy has made my life wonderful in so many ways.  I would not trade one crazy day for anything. All of the hospital stays, the Girl Scout meetings,  and complaints about being the only girl have made life so enjoyable.

Cassidy has been so excited today. "Guess what?  It's my golden birthday, mom!"  That puts things into a 12 year old's perspective.  They get excited about the little things.

WOW

WOW!!  It is amazing how quickly time flies!

As of my last post we have had a hospitalization, 4-H (county fair), Boy Scouts, and school starting very quickly!

First:  About a month after I last updated everything, you guessed it ~ Cassidy was in the hospital.  We went to the ER on Saturday night, mainly to get a refill of nebulizer meds.  (I did not want to risk a problem with running out.)  When we left the ER at 12:30 am, Cassidy's pulse ox was 98.  I thought we had managed to catch whatever was going on early enough. Boy was I wrong!  By 8:30 am (eight hours later), I knew things were not so good.  We went back to the ER and Cassidy's pulse ox was 79!  The biggest problem was that even with breathing treatments, it would NOT go up.  I knew then that we would be going into the hospital, but I did not know which one.  I was given a choice ~ Riley Children's Hospital in Indianapolis or Memorial Children's Hospital in South Bend.

Restart of this post:

Somehow I did not actually finish or publish this update.  (Today is June 8, 2013.)

So let's try again.

To be honest, I do not remember the exact date I started this post to begin with.  So I will try to update everything.

The hospitalization was in May.  We ended up going to South Bend Memorial Children's hospital (May 2012.)  Cassidy was there for a week.  I cannot imagine a better hospital.  It is so much closer than Riley's and the doctors and nurses were fabulous!  (Rileys is a great hospital also, but Memorial is so much closer, so I like it better.)  Cassidy hated being in the PICU, but things could have been so much worse.  I saw so many kids much sicker than her and I am so grateful that she is not worse.

The 4-H fair was a lot of fun.  Cassidy was there everyday, because she had to take care of her horse.She did really well and made a lot of new friends.   Chris and Barry had one project in the fair ~ Legos.  Cassidy also had a scrapbook in the fair.  It was a nice slow introduction to 4-H and fair craziness.  They all got A awards in their projects.

Chris is now an official Boy Scout.  He really likes his troop and they do activities every month.  He has gone white water rafting, backpacking, and helped at winter fest.  He also went to a survival "training" weekend, where he did not sleep in a tent and learned to start a fire without matches (kind of a scary thought.)  Barry will join him as a Boy Scout next March.

We have made it through another school year.  Barry was in his last year at Yost (fourth grade).  Kind of a sad thought.  I no longer have a child in elementary school.  I was the PTO president at the school this year.  Very crazy!  I loved every minute, however I now know how much volunteers make all the difference.  Cassidy was a fifth grader at Westchester Intermediate.  She had some trouble with teacher's understanding her IEP and following it.  Because I come from a family full of teachers I am totally on the teacher's side when my children do something wrong, but when it comes to their ability to learn I have to fight for my kids.  Cassidy did fine until she was in the hospital again in November.  Because she was sick, her teacher gave her  an F in a project she was unable to finish.  I was angry!  I was able to get Cassidy in the class she needed to be in and she did really well through the rest of the year.  Chris decided that as a sixth grader, he was on a home work strike.  His grades definitely reflected that.  He still managed to pass his classes, but his grades were lower than they should have been.

Now we are at the end of this crazy update, well, no not yet.  :)

Chris was diagnosed with Asperger's.  This has helped explain a lot of what goes on in his head to me, his teachers, and people who know him.  It has also made it easier to figure out what kind of help he needs.  He now gets group counseling and individual counseling.  He really enjoys group counseling.  He reminds me that we have to go.  :)  Makes my life a little easier.  He seems to be more willing to think before he acts which is a great thing.  Still have a long way to go, but we are on our way!

Cassidy now sees an asthma specialist and because of this she only was in the hospital one time this school year, although she spent Thanksgiving in the PICU.   She still has flare ups, but now we are starting to get a handle on things.  She has gone through one part of her allergy testing and she has two more to go.  So far, no allergies yet.  :)

Barry is my calm, healthy child.  I think God knew that I needed a break after everything I have gone through with Chris and Cassidy.  Hopefully Barry will continue to stay healthy.  :)  All three kids have projects for this year's fair.  We have a lot to do!