Not Again

Sprite had a nasty cold again and started weezing last week. Hubbie and I have been holding our breath every time she gets a cold, waiting to hear the weeze that we heard so many times with Sprout. We have been really lucky up until this point but recently Sprite has had two episodes of RAD, Respiratory Airways Disease, that have required steroids and I can't help but start panicking a little. I know there could be sooo many worse things and in the grand scheme of things we have been really lucky but that doesn't mean that it has been easy. It just breaks my heart to think that she too might have to go through what Sprout went through as a munchkin. It was heartbreaking and as parents we felt so helpless. Sprout started having breathing problems when he was nine months old and we spent the next year in and out of the hospital, enduring tests for Cystic Fibrosis, TB and other lung disorders, administering breathing treatments and steroids... I remember on more than one occasion rushing into the emergency room with him in my arms crying because he was struggling so hard just to get a breath, his chest contracting. Many times I would have to pull over 3-4 times on the way to give him albuterol. Once there, they would wisk him away and hook him up to all kinds of equipment. Then we would spend the next couple of days in the pediatric unit, enduring x-rays, blood work, IV's, back clapping and oxygen masks. Because he was just a baby he had to be in what looked like a jailed crib-it was so sad. The days following were filled with breathing treatments every 2 hours, steroids and one very grumpy and irritable little boy. The steroids that he had to take made him miserable and almost inconsolable. They do the same to Sprite! They also added some meat to my already meaty baby! Today Sprout's asthma is under control with the right combinations of medicine and we rarely have to use his inhaler. He was doing so well for a while that we tried taking him off of his medications but he recently had to go back on them. The winter is the toughest time for him as viral infections are his main trigger and all of the steroids he was on weakened his immune system so he catches everything! I guess the good news is that we have been through this before so we know what to do and what to watch for but I can't help hoping that it is just a rough winter and once spring comes we will all be healthy again and these days will be nothing but a distant memory.