Asthma

Ben has been battling another nasty cold for the last 6 days, and has missed 4 days of school. I initially brought him into the doctors office at the hospital in Grand Rapids on Monday. They stated that they didn't hear anything in his lungs and that his strep test was negative. But, suggested that if the fever persisted, to come back in two days.

Of course the fever and nasty cough persisted, and so two days later I tried to get him seen at the same doctors office (his pediatrician is on vacation, so he was not seeing his regular doctor) but they couldn't get him in. So, I called the Deer River clinic that is in Grand Rapids, and they couldn't get him in either (despite trying their hardest due to the fact that I am an employee). So, I called the clinic in Deer River and finally found someone who could see him.

She listened to his lungs and stated that she wanted to get a peak flow reading from him as well. I knew at this point she had heard something. So his peak flow was low, which I could tell just from watching him and not even seeing the numbers, and the doctor said that she heard a lot of upper and lower airway congestion and wheezing. She put him on albuterol, prednisone, and antibiotics.

Then I got to thinking, about this trend of Ben getting pneumonia and upper respiratory illnesses that last a week over the last few years. I also thought about how Nate would get the same colds (minus the pneumonia) and recover quicker. Which makes sense when you think about the fact that if Nate gets a cold we immediately start his asthma meds.

So, does Ben have a mild asthma that is aggravated with illness? We are unsure, but he was certainly looking and sounding better just from one neb in the doctors office. We will follow up in about a month to see how his lungs are sounding. It certainly makes sense, especially given the fact that I have asthma.

The most important thing is he is recovering finally! The not so good thing is that Ben on prednisone is CRAZY!