Breathe

Evan was not quite four months old when he was first hospitalized with croup. He seems to gravitate to croup any time he starts with cold symptoms. He has asthma and that tends to complicate things further. We started to see a pattern. He would start with a clear runny nose, then get completely stuffed up, and then the cough would start. The super tight, barky cough. That usually started in the middle of the night and then we were in for it. If the pattern held true his breathing would start being labored and then sometimes end up with him struggling for each breath. We would sit up with him most of the night giving him breathing treatments, sitting in the bathroom full of steam, taking him outside in the cold air and still there would be times that we would end up in the E.R. There was one evening that "the cough" started at dinner and by 8pm we had called 911 and he was on his way to the hospital via ambulance. I have seen my boys lips start to turn blue and have to fight so hard to get a breath that his whole chest caves in. It is scary and awful. I think it was when he was around two or three years old that our pediatrician told us that it might start getting better when he was six or seven, when his airways were bigger. It seemed like such a long way off back then, but here we are!

This past weekend Evan started his old pattern. Runny nose, stuffed up, barky cough, but that was as far as it got! The last three nights I have brought his inhalers upstairs to bed. I've been on high alert and had super sonic hearing to detect the slightest change in his breathing (from across the upstairs). I mentally prepared myself for the worst. Ready to dash to the hospital with a boy, tinged blue, and having trouble breathing. I had to be. You can't exactly take many chances when your child has a history of not being able to breathe. But there was nothing. Not even a single wheeze. The doctor was right, he is finally growing out of the worst of his asthma! I am tickled pink, truly amazed and so thankful!

We might not be completely out of the woods yet but I'm counting this as a victory. Evan's first cold without having breathing difficulties. It may just have to go down in his baby book!