A Long Weekend

Our weekend of fun in Roanoke was curtailed by sweet Kyle's asthma. We headed to Roanoke Friday night for a weekend of swim meet and family fun as we were planned to hook up with my brother and his family plus my parents. Kyle got sick Friday morning and I took him to the doctor. He was put on an antibiotic and the doctor told me to start the breathing treatments. It was really cold here over the weekend, so the cold blustery air did not help the situation.

Kyle did not swim Saturday morning in his events he was so sick. He ran a fever on and off all weekend and despite the fact that we were giving him all his asthma meds, he was still having issues breathing.

Sunday morning we woke up in the hotel and Kyle bounced out of bed and was ready to swim. We let him swim the 50 freestyle, 50 breaststroke, and 25 backstroke. From watching him swim, you could tell he was not himself, but he still placed in his age category. Have I mentioned lately that my boy is a tad competitive??!!

Anyway, by the time we got home he was really struggling to breathe and after a consult with our doctor over the phone, we were able to keep him out of the ER on Sunday night by giving him all the medicine we could find in our cabinet from previous croup and/or asthma episodes.

This morning, Mike and I took both kids to the doctor since David spiked a fever last night and started barking like a seal. The doctor listened to Kyle and is very concerned about his asthma and also diagnosed pneumonia on top of the asthma. He is to lay down all day with minimal talking and eating only little meals-basically no exertion at all to stay out of the hospital. We are doing oral steroids and breathing treatments every four hours-he is a sick little baby.

Mike and I have such guilt in our hearts that we allowed him to swim yesterday morning. He did bounce out of bed ready to go and he begged us to let him swim, but we should have known better. Kyle's asthma has been infamous for hiding the symptoms until it gets really bad. I never want to keep Kyle from doing something he is able and desperate to do with the asthma diagnosis, but in hindsight he never should have exerted himself yesterday. Our asthma specialist at UVA taught us years ago to never let Kyle use asthma to keep him from doing something, but again you have to respect it as well.

We will chalk this one up to a learning experience-Kyle's asthma has not really reared its ugly head for over a year. It started about three years ago when he was exposed to whopping cough that morphed into asthma. After this nightmare is over, we will talk with the doctor about some maintenance medicine for Kyle that will keep him from getting this sick again. Asthma is a dirty word in our household:)

David is also home today with some coughing and gunk. He was such a big boy at the doctor's office today and so far has cooperated with the breathing treatments and oral medicine. David is typically not a good patient, but we were so proud of him today! If you try to call our house today, we might not be able to hear the phone with both boys needing so many breathing treatments, our nebulizer is working overtime!