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Rewards
Appreciate the beauty of a day with no breathing problems You can appreciate the beauty of a day with no breathing problems and no illness. It's nice to be able to appreciate that. I mean, you don't know when you have it good until you've seen it bad. I'd say that's the greatest joy. The fact that I have my son, that nothing has happened to him to make him so ill that he ends up really serious is rewarding. I mean, it's rewarding to just have him, period. Well, in general Toby is a great kid. I guess him having asthma is another opportunity to see how resilient he is when he does things like take his medication really well, or says, “I know that if I see Mindy (Toby's nurse practitioner) I get medicine and I feel better.” It's another opportunity, a different kind of venue, to see that he is a resilient little guy that I wouldn't necessarily see if he didn't have asthma.They know how to handle themselves There is nothing rewarding about it. That I can say. Well, I should say that both Caleb and Andrew know how to handle themselves and what to avoid. So having them be able to take care of themselves is one rewarding thing about it. Being able to train them and having them applying it to themselves when they need to is rewarding. The greatest reward about this whole situation is I am better informed about asthma. The more you may read/learn about asthma, the better it is for everyone concerned.It keeps me more knowledgeable When he was younger he was always at the doctor's. Now he doesn't have to go as much; we got it under control. But because I have met so many different doctors over the years, and they have told me everything that was going on with Jason's asthma at those times, I think I've gotten very knowledgeable about everything that's going on with my child's care. Some parents who have healthy kids probably think “Oh, it's just a cold,” if their child hasn't been sick very much when their kid could have pneumonia. And it's just because they're not used to going to the doctor so often. When I bring him to the doctor's, I pay attention to everything they say. So I guess him having asthma keeps me more knowledgeable. I try to find comfort in the fact that although it seemed overwhelming at first, I learned to handle it. With medicine and environmental adjustments, asthma can be controllable (to varying degrees, of course, depending on the individual case). I sometimes feel, “Why me?” or “Why him?” but when I look around— particularly when I'm at our pediatric hospital for Evan just to have a regular check-up— I see so many people who have far more debilitating illnesses. I realize things could be much worse, and that I should count by blessings. Well, I think Katie's allergies and asthma have taught me compassion. I don't think I was a very compassionate person before, but I am now. When I was younger, it was a lot easier for me just to turn my head away from people with problems. And I don't do that anymore. He doesn't seem to have any objection to taking maintenance medications every day. He holds the spacer on his own face. He would like to try to do it himself, although I won't let him. He doesn't have any negative feelings about taking the medication at this point. In the beginning, he really fought it. We did a little behavior modification with it, so that he got a little chocolate chip every time he took his medication. He very quickly got used to the medication and now occasionally, maybe once every three weeks, he will say, “I just took my medicine can I have a chocolate chip?” But he's really forgotten about that as a reinforcer so it really did work. |
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Hospital Boston Department of Psychiatry. All Rights Reserved. The information on this website should not be taken as medical advice, which can only be given to you by your personal health care professional. Updated: June 5, 2007 |
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