Reactive Airway Disease

Anyone ever heard of that? I hadn't... not until Monday evening, anyway, when My Beloved returned home from the doctor's office with Tornado. Yep, that's the diagnosis. Apparently it's what they call asthma like symptoms in little ones too young to participate in the asthma diagnostic testing, and it is said to be set off by something else: environmental stimulus, minor cold, etc. We have the minor cold thing going on in our home. My Beloved and I are even wondering if the "pneumonia" he had several months ago was really pneumonia, or if perhaps it was another episode of this Reactive Airway Disease (RAD) triggered by a cold or something.

Regardless, you should have been me Monday night. My head was spinning as My Beloved lay out for me all the treatment details I would be implementing over the next few days. Now, two days later, it all seems so simple, but Monday night I was wondering if I would need a written chart. Really, it isn't so bad, but when you first hear it all, it can be a bit overwhelming.

First of all, by the time they got to the appointment at 4:40 pm Monday afternoon, his O2 Sats were 91 (instead of 98-100) and his resperations were pretty high. Two breathing treatments and a dose of steroids later, things were looking much better.

Home treatment isn't much different. Every 3 hours while he is awake he gets a breathing treatment with a nebulizer. In addition to that, he is on a steroid twice per day. We are supposed to be giving him Singulair also, but we are not happy with the reports on that drug, so we are opting out... again. Oh, and I'm not supposed to let him get worked up. Not supposed to let a 21 month old named Tornado get worked up... nothing that could get him wheezing. Once the wheezing starts, it's pretty much irreversable without medicine. And all this until Friday morning at our follow up appointment... where, evidently, they will be putting together an Asthma care plan for us. Sigh. And you should have seen the bill!

Anyone with entertainment ideas for a 21 month old? I would really appreciate it. We've been watching way more Signing Time than I usually let him watch in a day (we try to keep it to no more than 1 half hour a day).

Labels: As it happens...

posted by ~Babychaser~ @ 9:35 AM