borderline

Dalton's sick. Respiratory illnesses have always seemed harder on him than Shelby. We all get a cold, but he is coughing long after everyone is healthy. Gavin is a bit the same way.

On Saturday, at his second soccer game (that he refused to miss) he was coughing like crazy on the field. One of the mothers asked me if he had asthma. To which I promptly responded "Of course not". She said that he sounded a lot like her twins, who both had it (one of whom is the strongest player on his team). The wheels slowly began turning. His Dad had asthma as a kid, which he outgrew. But he still uses an inhaler when he gets a respiratory infection. Dalton's breathing is labored when he gets a respiratory infection, and he can have coughing attacks that are so strong he complains that his heart, and his sides hurt afterwords. Is this something that his doctors have missed all these years?...could he have asthma?

He coughed throughout the weekend. He hardly slept. The Tylenol Cold, the cough medicine that the pharmacist recommended..none of it helped ONE BIT. He was exhausted. Monday he got in for an appointment with a doctor (who was not his regular Pediatrician). This guy took a few listens to his lungs, listened to him hack his guts out, and said that he had para influenza. He was going to prescribe an inhaler, give him a steroid, and give him a cough medicine that was very strong (the same one that I got the guilt trip for requesting from his regular doctor a few weeks ago when he had h1n1). I almost started crying right there. Finally...relief.

So, he slept well Monday night (thank goodness). But Tuesday he was coughing just as much and the inhaler didn't seem to be doing much. Last night I was at Barnes and Noble, picking up a book for a class, and I got a call from Gavin. "Dalton is writhing in pain. His ear is killing him." I came home and so Gavin could take him to the Instacare clinic. He texted me an hour later to say that Dalton had gotten a chest x-ray, and he had pneumonia. Good Lord. So, now Dalton is on Amoxicillin and Azythromycin. He is still coughing like crazy, and taking the Albuterol in the inhaler.

Poor kid. Day 3 of school missed this week.