Catching your breath during an emotional roller coaster
She looks at me and I smile my biggest smile and as she leans forward I do the same, putting my ear on her back to listen for that rattle during the next cough. Confused, she turns, looks at me and I smile again hoping she can’t see the worry in my eyes.
She’s almost 2 years old. About 6 months ago she was diagnosed with viral asthma.
The rational part of my brain knows — she has treatment to help her day to day, she has treatment to help during some of the scarier moments when her lungs are struggling a little harder than they should for air, she has a specialist that monitors her, and we can get to a hospital if it gets bad. She is lucky, and we are lucky.
But the other side of my brain — that’s where the worry and panic live. I start to shake when I think too hard about it. I worry when she coughs, each time asking out loud, or to myself “Are you ok, baby?” I go to bed whispering a vow that “I will listen and be here when you need me”.
The backstory is that I know little about children with asthma, or people with asthma. I know that my husband had it severely as a child and teenager, but as an adult managed to control it so well that the process seemed simple and easy. He runs, snowboards, hikes – there are always puffers in the car and around the house but until recently, they seem more annoying than critical.
In Canada, it is quite complicated to officially diagnose a child with asthma. About a year ago, my daughter fought tonsillitis, pneumonia, and croup with dose after dose of antibiotics all in a 6 week period. In fact, when I was at the pharmacy picking up the last round of antibiotics, the pharmacist made sure she told me that “this was a lot of antibiotics for a small child”. Um, thanks.
Luckily, a family member helped me get the name of an infant respiratory specialist, but I still needed a doctors referral to officially book an appointment. My doctor fought me saying “kids get sick”, “you can thank daycare for this” and of course “she’s too young for it to be asthma”.
It’s hard for general practitioners to get on board with a toddler asthma diagnosis. The truth is that there are ‘lung function tests’ that are used to complete a diagnosis. One for example, measures the air that you are able to blow out and how quickly. The problem is that you can’t really request a young child to perform these tests correctly. It seems that because we don’t have a test suited for a young child, there is hesitation to diagnose it. I understand, there are other reasons why a child might breath quickly or wheeze with their breath; they are little and their lungs are still growing but it seems like a line has been drawn in the sand for the general practitioner.
Finally, she gave me the referral.
He was a clear expert, confident in his diagnosis. There were a couple of things that the specialist really paid attention to that my Doctor didn’t:
- Family history. He dove deep into this topic, interested in the severity, treatment and progression over time.
- The word pneumonia — his eyes raised at the first mention of it. This one is a very common misdiagnosis of early asthma.
- My daughter — he listened to her chest at the first sign of a cold and put the pieces of the puzzle together instead of seeing each incident as isolated events.
I can’t describe how relieved we were to have a doctor that believed us, who knew what to do and who I could tell really wanted to help. We now have 2 puffers, 1 maintenance puffer that we use twice a day, and 1 rescue puffer that acts like jumper cables to open up the airways when there are clear signs of struggle.
Most days, everything is normal.
I relish in the joy on her face when she sees the dogs run into her room in the morning or as she tries (and fails) to move her hands to do the itsy-bitsy spider. I scream inside with frustration when she kicks and squirms while trying to get her dressed when we’re running late or when the word mummy gets repeated like a broken record, no matter how cute it sounds at first. I melt when she hugs me and when she shakes her mini little hips as she dances. I tear up with sadness when I leave her some days and five minutes after I’ve picked her up other days because I’m desperate for some alone time.
When she’s sick, every feeling is exaggerated. I smile my biggest smile so that she knows that I’m here and that everything is going to be ok. I bounce back and forth between my normal laid back demeanour and panicking because the thought echoes in my mind: “She’s struggling to take in a breath” and that means “She’s struggling to breath”. It’s terrifying. It is, unfortunately, a common condition in our society, generally so well controlled and treated that it’s severity is almost downplayed. However, if you bring a child to the emergency room and even whisper ‘asthma and trouble breathing’ — there is no waiting, no triage. So, it’s serious.
My husband explains how important it is to stay calm. “If we can stay calm, she can stay calm” he tells me. I listen and watch closely as he gives her tips on taking deep breathes, admiring him like crazy and at the same time feeling almost jealous that it’s him giving her these lessons and not me.
I pray she’ll never endure what he had to. I pray that we as parents won’t have to endure what his did. I hope that my eyes, body movements and facial expressions don’t give away how worried and nervous I am and that my worry will never hold her back physically or mentally.
So with her perplexed face looking at me as if to say ‘What’s you ear doing on my back?’, I pick her up, spin her around and around until she giggles the sweetest baby laugh. The cough and my chance to listen will come soon, and with it the wave of emotions will hit as I try to catch my breath, while she continues to catch hers.