Samuel was born in '09 a healthy little boy. We couldn't have been happier. David and I have always been very healthy ourselves, only needing to visit the doctor once every few years , so we fully expected to have the same in our children. And I must interject right now before I really start, that I know there are so many people with much more difficult or severe conditions, but to us, this is huge!
People commented to us right from the start that Samuel was a heavy breather. I can't count how many times others would ask me if he was okay because he was breathing so loudly! When Samuel was about 9 months old, he had RSV. We put him on a nebulizer for a few weeks and he seemed fine. He also had unusually dry skin. Not a big problem to us.
Fast forward to this past summer. June 18, 2011. We had Julia's first birthday party and spent hours outside where the kids ran through the grass and got very hot! My parents and my in-laws became very concerned when Samuel was breathing heavily. Since this happened fairly often, David and I dismissed it for awhile. However, Samuel broke out in hives all over and we knew something was wrong. Not knowing really what else to do, we gave him some Benadryl and used hydrocortisone lotion, and he and David sat in the bedroom for the remainder of the afternoon working on calming down so he could breathe.
We still didn't think too much of the whole thing until exactly one month later. It was a routine morning at home, and Samuel had been "helping" me fold laundry. He had disobeyed somehow and I had given him a brief time-out in his room. At about 8:30 a.m. he started wheezing and coughing uncontrollably. His skin turned red again, and this time I knew something was definitely wrong. The worst feeling in the world is when your child can't breathe and you have no idea what caused it or how to fix it! My 2-year-old baby was so panicked, and so was I! I did all I could think of - ran the shower with hot water to get some steam going, and held his face over the steam. I honestly have no idea what Julia was doing at the time, and she is usually pretty "needy". I thank God for so many things that day, including keeping me at least somewhat calm and keeping the baby occupied and unhurt while I cared for Samuel!
As soon as I got Samuel to a point where I felt he could breathe without coughing (he still couldn't talk, though), I called the doctor's office where they put the on-call nurse on the phone. She immediately scheduled Samuel to see our doctor just as soon as we could get in. Another praise . . . it takes 45 minutes to get to our pediatrician's office, and I got dressed, took Julia to a friend's house, picked up David from work, and got to the office within an hour!
By the time we got to the doctor's office, Samuel was only wheezing every few breaths. It was at that point that we remembered the episode one month earlier, and I actually remembered at least one other time where Samuel had wheezed and coughed and broken out in hives. I had completely dismissed that and forgotten until we were at the dr's that day. He sent us home with a nebulizer, some epipens, and steroids, and scheduled us to see an allergist. He told us there is usually a link between the breathing issues and what he labled as "severe eczema".
Never would we have guessed before July 18th that we have such a "sick" little boy! We are so thankful that God has kept him safe thus far and has provided with each subsequent outbreak of hives and wheezing the ability to get help/relief within minutes. I will continue this story in a second post with the test results from August and how we've dealt with Samuel's issues since then!
 |
| Our sweet little cowboy!! |
No comments:
Post a Comment