The bad news is sweet Ben is not his best self right now. He has had a lingering cough since his croup episode almost a month ago. I kept thinking it was getting better, but then it would never quite go away. Then in the last few days it seemed to get worse. After an evening of crazy crying and general misery, I decided it was time to take him in to see the pediatrician the next day.
{Ben on Wednesday night...poor guy}
We went in first thing yesterday morning and got him checked out. Our pediatrician is absolutely wonderful. I feel like when we talk, I am sitting with my mother and best friend all at once. We talked a long time about his symptoms, how long he has had them and the sudden worsening of them. She listened to his chest and commented on all the wheezing she heard. It turns out that we might be hearing a lot more wheezing in the months/years ahead. Due to Ben's lungs and his genetic makeup, he might react this way when he gets sick and have trouble getting over the illness and wheeze/cough for a lot longer without some help from medicine. This is probably why he reacted so bad to RSV back in January and ended up in the ICU for two weeks. Anyhoo, he walked away with an oral steroid, an inhalant steroid and another inhalant as well. I walked away with a lot of mommy guilt that I did not take him in sooner. Hindsight is always 20/20.
We now have an inhaler that our pediatrician calls "the rescue inhaler", meaning if he gets in distress we use it to avoid the hospital. We are having to use the other steroid inhaler for the next month and then try to wean off of it. But if he starts to wheeze again, we might just have to use it all winter.
My poor Ben.
She then mentioned if this is how he continues to do over the next few years and doesn't outgrow this, it may turn into asthma. Which honestly just makes me sad. No one in our family has asthma, so this is a little unfamiliar. I know it is not a big deal compared to what we could be dealing with, but I am sad to know this might be in the future. The pediatrician said he might have episodes when he is sick over the next few years that scare us due to lack of breathing and distress, but we can manage it all and if all else fails, go to the hospital to get some additional help.
I am actually glad this happened and we went in so we have a plan now. So I don't have anymore Friday night freak outs and have to go to the ER because we don't know what we are dealing with. Today he woke up with fever, so clearly he is getting another little bug. I am just ready to have our crew back to being healthy!
Luke has not caught it (yet) and is trying to be a good big brother :). He helps out by making his little brother laugh a lot. Now if we could just get him to stop running him over with his wagon...
On another good note, Ben is starting to walk! He has been walking short distances with my encouragement, but today he decided to take steps all by himself without any prompting. It is just so darn cute!!
3 comments:
The boys had the same problem. When they were born the doctors had to stimulate their breathing. I have always thought that's what made them more sensitive to breaking issues. We had RSV and all the breathing treatments every fall, winter, and spring. This last winter (4 years old) we finally had a season without breathing treatments all season! It still is how we do "colds" but it's not a whole season of treatments. So I hope that gives you some hope! Maybe he will outgrow it!
That helps Leah! It is just so hard to see your little one cough and cough and cough and cough with no relief. Your story helps!!! So happy for you and your new bundle arriving this spring! Are you going to find out the gender??? :)
Bethany- I hate that for you guys! as you know, we go through the exact same thing with Grayson. If it makes you feel any better, he has gotten another cold since we emailed and he handled his breathing much better! We did end up with double ear infections, but compared to the alternative I consider that a victory. Perron, my first, was a preemie and got RSV when he was around 9 months old. He had a horrible time with colds/respiratory viruses until he was two and a half. Now, I can't even remember the last time we used an inhaler on him. Just because they are bad now doesn't mean they will always be bad. There's hope! At least that is what I tell myself :)
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