When Jordan was younger he (as I) was afraid of doing sports/activities for fear of having an asthma attack. For this reason, he kind of laid low on sports. He just played football last year, used his Albuterol a few times, but with the cold weather and all the running around he did, he ended up not really having a problem after all.
Trying out being active
We just started having him play sports. He’s not an active kid, so now we got him into school where he has to play four sports during the year. I think that will be a good thing because his doctor told me that the more active they are, the better of they’re going to be with the long term.
Handling soccer
Tyson wants to play soccer. I do wonder and worry right now if he will have a hard time breathing. I won’t tell Tyson that I’m worried until I know for sure whether or not the doctors think he’ll be able to play sports. There’s a lot of running in soccer, constant running. Would he be able to handle that? As his mother, I don’t really think he could handle that kind of running because of his lungs. I’ll let him try it but I don’t really think it will work out because I watch how he runs now and he can’t really do it for very long.
Find a sport that works!
We looked into what sport would be best for Bridget. She played softball one spring, and she did pretty well with it. She wasn’t the best player in the world by any measure, but it was fun to watch her. She went out for gymnastics and she did well with that, but unfortunately you have to coat your hands with chalk for some of the events, and the chalk flying around could trigger her and she’d start wheezing. She really liked it and she really wanted to go far with that, but she just said “I just can’t do it with my health.”
So I said, “What about swimming?” She took swimming lessons and joined a swim team. Bridget is an excellent swimmer – she placed quite a few times in swim meets. Not first place, but she did place well, and she did a good job for her team. And the team was really very proud of her. She does triathlons now. She just completed one not that long ago, and she did a five mile road race a couple weeks ago. She’s a hot ticket. Her asthma doesn’t get her down. She’s a tough nut.
Well managed asthma
When she was younger she might have had trouble in soccer practice or in soccer games and need to come out of the game or off the field and use her Albuterol inhaler. Now, Katie just finished track and field, and she’s able to do that because her asthma’s well controlled. We make that point with her, that it might be different if her asthma wasn’t so well managed.