I talked with the doctors about Tyson’s asthma. His doctor was really, really, really good about telling me a lot of things about asthma, and when Tyson would get sick and if his doctor wasn’t in, we would see somebody else who would actually go though writing down diagrams that showed me what the lungs do. Then they set me up with somebody who actually specializes in asthma. That doctor had a lot of information for me to read, and then the clinicians also tell you a lot of different things about asthma when you come into the Emergency Room. They discuss a lot of things with you about asthma and talk to you.
She doesn’t want to take her meds, because her friends don’t do it…
Just in the last year Katie has become very resistant to taking her meds. She doesn’t want to do Intal, because her friends who have asthma don’t do Intal. Now her friends who have asthma and don’t do Intal end up in the emergency room, and they use Albuterol a lot more often than Katie does, and they end up on steroids a lot more often than she does, but I think Katie would take that over doing Intal every day. We’d been arguing about it, so I told her to talk to our allergist since she’s the expert.
So during our last visit with her, Katie talked with her, and said she really wanted to stop doing her Intal, it made her feel different, and that she really didn’t want to do it. She was crying. Our doctor said, “You know, Katie, I wish that I could, but I can’t say that I think it’s in your best interest to stop doing your Intal. I can tell that this is really upsetting for you, but I just can’t say that to you.” I think the doctor was near tears, and Katie was so upset, and my husband and I were sitting there. But about a week after that, Katie said, “I want to call my doctor and apologize, I think I was really overreacting about the Intal, it’s not that big a deal.” I said “You don’t need to apologize, you know, you were just telling her how you felt, and it’s okay to have those feelings.” But now for whatever reason she’s now doing her Intal without complaining.
Knowing your child
As Tyson gets older his asthma has gotten worse, so he’s had to have an increase in his medications. They weren’t really doing as well as they were before. You can actually tell those things about your children too if you really know your children. Some parents don’t really know their children; they’re so busy. So, if you can get to know your child and get to know the asthma then you can really monitor him or her on your own, and you can actually tell the doctors, “I think my son needs an increase.” They’ll then say, “OK, well what’s he doing?” And they’ll run through this checklist and ask “Is he this, is he doing this, is this going on?” And then you can say “Yes, yes, yes” and it turns out, yeah, he needs an increase.
Didn’t know it meant something when she wheezes…
Mya has to follow up with another doctor because she has been in the hospital before, but the wheezing and stuff wasn’t as serious as they say it is now. It was hard because I never took her wheezing that seriously; it was just like “Oh, she’s wheezing.” I didn’t know it meant something until now when she’s wheezing so bad, and we’re in the hospital.
If he has an attack, he’ll probably have a second one after
I have learned from Brian’s allergist that that is not uncommon if a child has a bad attack that he’ll have another one later on. She told us that you can pretty well set your watch that four to six hours later, he’s going to have a second attack, and that it will be a bad one. And she was right. It’s happened several times where he’s had an attack, and six hours later he had a second attack. So that’s another preparation thing that we’re aware of now: if he has a bad attack, you get him out of where he is, and you stick with him, and just wait for the next attack to occur.