We are all home now. We brought Timmy home last night. At first, it was hard. He didn't even want his brothers and sisters to come near him. But then Sarah took him away from clinging to me and made friends with him again. After that he was okay.
They think now that he might have asthma, but there has to be three episodes of wheeze before he's officially diagnosed. He's on a puffer for the first 24 hours, then as needed. He is supposed to have it with him (like in the diaper bag) wherever he goes, just in case. Since it was a cold that set him off this time, we are supposed to give him the puffer every four hours during a cold.
It is cold and wet and rainy. We are going to work inside the house today, attacking dust, mold and clutter, and increasing the air flow. Tom put in another cold air return for the furnace Tuesday, and already the air flow is better. Saturday, while Timmy was in the hospital the first day, Tom cleaned the boys' room (the four younger ones share a room). He discovered that Ben had been collecting, in boxes, birds' nests, bird seed, and garden soil! He cleared all that out, washed walls and the floor, raised the dressers up on 2X4s, washed bedding, and bought new pillows for John and Timothy. He said there was mold in there, but since that's the room with the new cold air return, he's hoping that will fix the moisture problem.
I will be so glad when we can start remodeling the inside of this house. Besides the cold air return, we need better insulation and moisture barriers. It is the outside walls in three or four rooms that are getting wet and moldy.
I've got to get going. We all slept in this morning, but now Timmy needs his last dose of steroid medicine and a puffer, John needs his antibiotic and steroid doses, and we all need breakfast.
Thanks for all the prayers during the last week.
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3 comments:
Cathy, glad you are all home safe and sound, will keep praying that everyone is better soon.
Kadia had mild asthma as a child and outgrew it. Definitely try to keep down the dust, take up the carpets if you have any, also heavy curtains if they can't be washed. Bedding needs to be kept dust free too. I know it is very hard to do but I found it makes a huge difference. Cold air used to trigger Kadia's attacks, if you take him outside make sure to cover his face with a scarf.
Hang in there!!!!
Maddie also seems to have outgrown her asthma. 80% of childhood asthma is outgrown by age 5. Most childhood asthmas are the cold and flu induced type and these are the type they very often outgrow. I think it has to do with their airways being so narrow when they are little, and in the asthmatic, their airways may be littler than average and/or they may have more mucous clogging up in the narrow airways. If mucous is a major contributing factor in your particular case, you may be able to influence that favourably with dietary changes.
Another thing I just thought of: Maddie was not diagnosed with asthma until she was a couple of years old, but I could see she was "different" when she was born. Paul has never been diagnosed with asthma, but as far as I'm concerned, he is asthmatic, though less severe. So now that you know what asthma looks like, you can start to figure out if you have other asthmatics in your home. Once we got Maddie and Paul's symptoms more under control, we had far less sickness in the house. Those two used to be sick almost all the time and would make the rest of us sick.
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