Asthma

Well, Jake has asthma. He'd been having some congestion in his chest, and was coughing a bit. He was rattly when he breathed. I'm not the kind of mom that takes the kids to the doctor at the slightest hint of illness - I tend to let them try to ride it out first. But we eventually decided that Jake needed to go in. Rick had been diagnosed with bronchitis a little bit ago, and we were a little worried that Jake maybe had a milder version of that. So off we went. OF COURSE, his chest and cough didn't sound nearly as bad at the doctor as it does at home, but she said she could still hear the rattle. She started to say, "here's what's wrong with him," and I was all ready for her to say he had bronchitis. NOPE. She said he has asthma. She had asked me questions about whether Jake had had bronchiolitis when he was a baby, and he did - twice. The doctor said that for babies, they call it bronchiolitis, but when kids are a bit older, they call it asthma. Neither Rick or I have asthma, and our sisters don't, so it wasn't something that was even on our radar. Apparently, lots of babies who are born early end up having asthma, but its also something that most kids grow out of during childhood.

Fortunately, we already own a nebulizer machine (from one of the bronchiolitis episodes), so we didn't have to buy or rent one of those. Jake doesn't love getting the breathing treatments, but he tolerates them a whole lot more than he did as a baby. We used to have to wait for him to fall asleep in the swing before we could give him a treatment. Now he'll let us do it while we read a book or he watches tv.