She has Asthma

My little girl has been wheezy from birth. We thought it was cute ya know. When newborns make noises, it makes everyones hearts melt. Up until a certain age that is, at which point the red face and loud grunting stops being cute and just becomes downright disgusting. ;-)

So we didn't worry too much about the sounds she made while breathing. I thought, " maybe its Asthma..but she is so young, how would they know?"

Flash forward 4 months

Little girl still wheezes, we take her to a doctor to inquire. " She has a noisy nasal cavity." He said, instantly making me fall in love with him. No not because he is young and good looking and a doctor, but because I can stop worrying about my daughters brain cells not getting enough oxygen. I can stop fretting over how I could possibly coerce my four month old girl into taking massive amounts of drugs when I hate even giving her a half a teaspoon of cough medicine. I am relieved, I am ecstatic and I am secretly still not sure......

Flash forward a year and a half

Little Girl still wheezes, louder and more often, coughing for long periods at night and sometimes during the day. Many people listen to her breathing, " yep, she has asthma." Drat that six letter swear word! One friends daughter has it and says, after having shoved her ear into Little Girls chest, " Oh, that sound scares me!" Scares you? Your scaring me! I think its just a cold, a chest cold I tell myself, she'll get over it and you'll all see!

Four nights of humidifier treatments later, she still has it. No amount of cold medicine will send it away. " she has asthma" I remember admitting to myself, and I was sad.

None of you probably know, but I have asthma and so does my husband. He has it less than I do, in fact he doesn't even remember the last time he had to use an inhaler, but I remember mine.

If I am around dogs and cats, or cold air or exercise, I better have that little puffer, or I'm toast. I hoped to avoid that dependency with Little Girl. I wanted her to be healthy and happy and not have to be limited or disabled. I want her to be able to run and skip and play without having to stop to catch her breath hours before the other children have to. I want her to have a family dog to love and pet and cuddle with, without the fear of a hospital trip. I want so many things for her that might not come true.

Flash back last Friday in the Doctors office

" She has mild persistent asthma" he said, instantly making me hate him. Not because he is old and not very good looking and a doctor, but because he just broke my heart. " So what does it mean? what are the treatments?" I really didn't want to know, I wanted to clasp my hands over my ears and sing really loud so I couldn't hear him. But seeing as how no one else was there with me, I had no choice but to hear the sentencing. " She has to take this medicine with a nebulizer once a day every day until she is old enough to hold her own inhaler, probably about four years old. This other medicine goes in the nebulizer with the first if she has a really bad attack with rapid breathing. That isn't likely, but just so you'll be ready."

So there it is, the first two years of her life wheezing and the prognosis? The rest of her life stuck on drugs. Great. There has to be another way, maybe a second opinion with a specialist? Maybe some natural medicines? I don't know. I'm sad and relieved all at the same time. I want her to be able to breath, and have brain function! Perhaps she will grow out of it. Perhaps not. I guess all we can do is wait and see.