Asthma and allergies not fun at all!

Mr C actually just turned 3 in December (I know I know I really need to go and get some updated family pictures!), but when Mr. C was about 15 months he became diagnosed with asthma and multiple food allergies including nuts and eggs.

The food allergies have not been as bad as I originally thought, but it’s really his asthma that bothers me the most. He is taking multiple medications that I am not particularly fond of to control it, which started after a serious incident that landed him in the hospital.

Talk about a traumatic experience for a child. He acted like he had post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) every time we went to a doctor after this experience. It all started with a trip to the emergency room when he was having difficult time breathing.

They immediately brought him into the nurses’ station where they put some type of monitor on his finger to check his oxygen levels. Although, he wasn’t thrilled to have the monitor on his finger, he appeared to still be calm at that point (Not for long).

Then we were placed into a small patient room where there were suddenly about 4-5 nurses and staff in the room doing multiple things. I was overwhelmed and I could only imagine what he was thinking. First they tried to give him an oral steroid that apparently is the worst tasting thing you can think of giving a child. This resulted in him throwing up all over me, which was just lovely.

Then they wanted to take his temperature, but for some reason under the arm just wouldn’t be accurate enough, so they flipped him onto his belly and stuck the thermometer up his you know what. Now really in this situation is that necessary? He had never even had his temperature taken rectally at that point and the speed in which they did it alone was enough to make it seem questionable.

So, then they gave him a shot in his leg to replace the steroid he “threw up” all over me, started shoving a nebulizer in his face to give him a breathing treatment and put an IV in his arm. The IV was covered by an arm cast, so that he couldn’t bend his arm or move it. Then they attempted to give him some type of thick pink liquid medicine that was an antibiotic and I’m not even kidding that this all took place within the first 20 minutes of our arrival.

He was screaming, crying, grabbing onto me for dear life as I am just covered with puke. I guess his oxygen levels were low, but the method that they were using was making him more upset and making it even more difficult for him to breathe. Finally, he exhausted himself and fell asleep on me (now in a hospital gown to rid myself of my puke stained clothing). This at least allowed us to successfully give him his breathing treatment, but to no avail he did not improve and ended up needing to be admitted.

However, they did not have a pediatrician on staff over night at this particular hospital and wanted to transport him to another via ambulance. So, we had to strap him into a car seat on a stretcher and transport him in an ambulance to another hospital about 20 minutes away.

There they wanted him to lie in a bed for about three days while he recuperated. I was about to go insane by the end of this fiasco because if you know anything about asthma medications, they make you extremely hyperactive and wired, so lying in a bed was not what he wanted to do.
Despite all this, I am so thankful that he was okay and has been doing much better with his asthma since.

Recently, I have been reading about the benefits of taking raw honey to help relieve the symptoms of asthma, which we are currently trying. I'll let you know the results after a few months!