It was actually just a normal Sunday night, preceded by a beautiful and above average temperatured Saturday. A Saturday during which I enjoyed a long walk with a good friend and came home to find my little boys "helping" my hubby clean the garage, mostly by drawing with sidewalk chalk and blowing bubbles. Saturday evening we went out to dinner with family. Napless Luke is always a bit of a handful so he was extremely rowdy and I was horrified, but attempting to be calm. It was just pizza, right? Not a 5 star restaurant. Saturday night we gave him some Benadryl after listening to him cough for awhile in bed. Anytime Luke plays outside during the day, Benadryl is a bedtime companion. I asked the doctor about this, coupled with the fact that I think he sounds really short of breath sometimes when he plays really hard outside, but she told me that as long as he recovers quickly it probably just means he needs to be more active. I understand what she meant, but it made me laugh a little to hear her suggest Luke needs to be more active.
Fast forward to Sunday morning. We dropped the boys in their classrooms at church, then Dave and I attended the first service and went on to our classes that we teach for second service. Partway through that service I got paged by the children's department to "please come." This is not the first time I have been paged like this and I will confess that I was praying for a very minor injury or perhaps just that Max really needed his mommy. No such luck. At the end of my 'walk of shame' was Luke and his teacher, waiting for me in the hallway. She explained that he would not sit where/when instructed, was defiant, and finally started kicking at people. Oh, lovely. Now, I'll take him back to teach the 1st graders that other parents have entrusted to me. Clearly they have no clue what a bang up job I'm doing with my own child! But he just seemed off. I couldn't really explain it. [And I'm NOT doubting that he did all of those things that he was dismissed from class for doing, nor am I excusing his behavior.] But, he didn't want me to pick him up. He seemed to really just want to be left alone - which is NOT like Lukey at all.
He got to hang out with Dave and his class until church was over. Then we headed home, had lunch, and got everyone settled down to rest. Except that Luke would not settle down. Dave tried laying down with him but even that didn't encourage sleep. I wasn't really too surprised as the more tired Luke is, the harder it is for him to fall asleep.
Then at dinner he was goofing around (or so mother of the year) thought and making strange wheezing noises when he would cough. I think I even yelled at him for it at one point. Allergy moms do not see humor in wheezing noises.
We finally got everyone settled in bed and finally sat down ourselves when I heard Luke open his bedroom door. It's very loud when it opens, which is good because he spends a lot of time trying to escape. Dave got up first and went to check on him. He had already had Benadryl but was still coughing. I heard Dave asking him if he was okay so I went to join them. He was sitting at the top of the stairs and I could hear him wheezing down at the bottom of the stairs. NOT good. Having had a nearly $400 ear infection (and not the best service at that) last year because I jumped the gun and ran to the ER (what am I, a novice?), Luke and I set up camp on the couch where I could console, love, listen, find stuffed monkey and his little pillow, and generally be awake most of the night worrying.
He got to spend a week doing breathing treatments every 4 hours and taking a steroid. Her diagnosis was 'seasonal allergy induced asthma.' Ick. I didn't really even think to ask what this means long term. Luke was busy with her stethoscope, trying to listen to HER breathe, and I was trying not to lose my mind begging him to stop poking on the doctor.
He was a champ about the treatments and the meds. I even mentioned to someone that he was sleeping all night long since he had the treatments - no waking up crying, no showing up at my side of the bed at 4:30, etc.
Fast forward to this last Sunday night - exactly 2 weeks off meds. Wheezing. An offer by us, and initial refusal by him, of a breathing treatment with a little boy begging just to go back to sleep (even though he got up on his own and had come all the way downstairs). An attempt to give Benadryl which ended with the stuffed monkey taking more Benadryl
We continued breathing treatments all day Monday and Tuesday. By Tuesday afternoon he was done and so was I. Crummy sleep for all Sunday night and Monday night, plus more and more coughing. I made an appointment for Wednesday morning for him to visit, again, with his pediatrician.
There we got the diagnosis that didn't surprise me but kind of disappointed me. Asthma. She said it's tough to diagnose the first time because one of its characteristics is recurrence. However, a second visit in three weeks seemed to seal the deal. She also said the waking up at night is indicative, as is the coughing more after playing outside. So, this week we are back to oral steroids, the nebulizer and the first medicine, and now a second. The second will continue indefinitely - twice a day. So, "have breathing machine, will travel" seems to be the new motto. I feel a bit like I should sign him and his epi pen and breathing machine up for boy scouts - he's always prepared!
Finally, he was really wired when he started on the breathing treatments a few weeks ago. His doctor apologized warned me that this might be an issue. After the second or third one there was a clip on the television about one of the dancing shows and he was enthusiastically convincing me to try out the moves they were doing. Thankfully the jittery super hyper [must dance] post-treatment behavior subsided. However, now that we are mixing two meds, he is back to uncontrollable crazy. Our bedroom is a decent size and from there you walk into the master bath and on into the walk in closet. It's a long straight shot. I was putting on makeup and fixing my hair this morning and every once in awhile he would just jet past me from one end of the bedroom to the other end of the closet. I'm hoping this subsides soon. I'm also hoping for a good night's sleep that lasts longer than 5 hours (for me) sometime soon!
