Thankfully, peanuts were not to blame this time around!
Liam had a little cough for a couple of days (and Joergen had a runny nose, and I had a sore throat...), and we didn't think too much of it. But then Miss Doreen called me on Tuesday afternoon to let me know that Liam was now wheezing and it was getting progressively worse as the day was going on. He had never done that before, so I left work to see him and assess the situation. I could hear him wheezing from across the room as I opened the door to her house! Liam looked at me and said, "Eeam need doctor... now."
I called his pediatrician right away, and was advised to take him straight to the emergency room. He refused to go without Mommy, and Mommy couldn't go without Joergen, so the 4 of us piled in the car and off we went.
As usual, the visit involved a lot of waiting. Luckily, though, a Phillies game, the iPad, and coloring pages from the nurse helped to pass the time more quickly!
The first intervention was a nebulizer treatment with the "elephant nose." This helped a little, but not enough to get him released.
The second treatment was to use an inhaler with a spacer. He thought this was pretty cool-- and it worked!
Liam and Joergen were both total champs through the whole process, even though they were up WAY past their bedtimes. You honestly would never know that Liam was having trouble breathing by his affect. He just wanted to play-- and shmooze! Joergen took a little nap in his carseat to help pass the time, and although he didn't sleep very long, it was a miracle he could sleep at all with all the hustle and bustle of the emergency room!
The next day, I took Liam to the pediatrician for his ER follow-up. Dr. Fernando said the wheezing was most likely brought on by an upper respiratory infection, especially since he had only needed one inhaler treatment after we left the ER that night and had responded well to it. Because Liam has eczema and allergies, though, our main concern was of course that he was developing asthma: the three conditions go hand-in-hand along the same spectrum, and we've been warned many times to be watching for signs of it. Dr. Fernando let us know that if he starts to need the inhaler more frequently than every 4 hours, or if he stops responding well to the albuterol, then asthma may be the culprit. And, she said that while some kids are miserable when they have wheezing episodes, some kids are "happy wheezers"... which would definitely describe our guy!
He thankfully hasn't needed his inhaler at all since that night...
No comments:
Post a Comment