I had planned to follow the last post with a post of all that we did this summer, but my plans were thrown off when Micah's cold turned into an asthma attack.
He started school last Wednesday with a runny nose, but nothing else. That night he was tired, but I wasn't worried. Starting school each fall always makes him tired; add the obvious cold and there ya go.
Thursday, I sent him off to school noticing that he wasn't much different from the day before. That night, I had an evening class and didn't get home until after all the kids were asleep. I did notice that Micah was wheezing a bit in his sleep so I woke him and made him take his regular inhaler, then went to bed.
Friday morning I could hear the cold in his chest so I started him on his steroid inhaler and sent him to school with instructions to stay inside, not participate in gym and to call home, if needed. I picked him up and noticed how tired he was, so when we got home he went straight to the couch to lie down.
We only have one vehicle so I left to pick up Jason (my brother was home) but was gone for a lot longer than usual. Jason had a few stops to make and traffic sucked, being a Friday. I was worried about Micah the whole time. I probably had an idea of how bad he was, but didn't pay attention to it. This kills me.
After refusing supper, Micah just kind of laid around acting sick. It wasn't until later that evening when he had fallen asleep on the couch that I noticed his breathing. It was horrible. His chest would go way in with each breath but he didn't seem to be getting much air. So I woke him and wrapped him in a blanket for the drive to the hospital. We arrived around 9:45 and by 3am we were admitted and transferred upstairs. This was after recieving 5 masks. Micah fell asleep soon after but was woken by his oxygen monitor which beeped whenever his oxygen dipped below 90. He ended up needing an oxygen mask for the entire night while he slept, plus masks of medicine every two hours.
Anyway, long story short, it took from Friday night until Monday morning for his breathing to get to an acceptable level. We left the hospital around noon Monday with three appointments to various doctors, two prescriptions and instructions to follow up with our family doctor.
Micah has only been admitted once before when he was four. Since then I thought I had learned how to control his asthma, but I guess I've gotten lazy. Its been so long since he was that bad that I just didnt pay as much attention as I should have. My mom thinks that Micah should be old enough to know when he needs help and to tell me but I still feel like I should have been able to prevent this. If I had only started the steroid earlier, if I had only kept him home from school, if I had just not gone to school Thursday night. There's always so much going on that sometimes I don't pay attention to what's really important.
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