Mallory giving Pablo a nebulizer treatment. Have you ever heard of Reactive Airway Disease? I hadn’t either, until a year or so ago when our son got this horrific cough that wouldn’t go away. It’s basically just like asthma, except instead of being ongoing, the symptoms come and go and it’s usually triggered by a cold virus. The kids have been passing a cold bug back and forth, and it finally made its way to the boy. So, for days now, we’ve been doing round-the-clock nebulizer treatments and having him sleep in a humid room. Old hat. Easy cheesy. We’ve been doing this for a couple of years now, every time he gets sick, and it usually passes in a day or two.

Not this time! The other night, Pablo coughed literally all night long. Paul and I were up with him, worried, and I started counting the seconds between his coughs, like I was trying to find out how far away the lightning strike was from me. He was coughing on average, every twenty seconds. Poor kid! And NOTHING helped. We did the nebulizer, I buttered him up with Vicks Vaporub, we had the humidfier going on high, I even gave him the strong cough meds I usually save for emergency situations: Prescription Cheratussin with Codeine! It didn’t do a thing for my poor child.

I rattled off an email to Kaiser at about 4 in the morning, right before Pablo FINALLY stopped coughing and fell asleep. They asked us to come in promptly at nine. Paul pointed out to me that middle-of-the-night emails work WAY better than calling in and sitting on hold for half an hour!

Pablo’s oxygen level was at 90. I thought that sounded pretty good! That’s an A, right? I guess not. Even at our elevation, they wanted him to be above 96. They gave him a nebulizer treatment at the office and then informed us of the new plan: Prednisone!

We tried Prednisone a few years ago when Pablo was too frightened of the nebulizer, and it sucked ASS. It turned him into this psychotic, paranoid, hyped up little toddler. I was NOT looking forward to trying it out again, but…it seems to be doing the trick. Pablo’s still coughing here and there, but no more of that all-night-long business. And he is a bit agitated, but honestly – we’re on spring break, it’s cold as hell outside, and everyone’s sick. I’M a bit agitated!

Fingers crossed that the sun’ll come out tomoooorroooooow, the kids will get better, we can stop the steroids, and manage a trip to the museum before school starts again!

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