Well, Jackson decided to make this week extra interesting for us! On Tuesday morning, he woke up at his normal time, came downstairs and climbed into bed with us begging to play Angry Birds (his normal routine). We usually let him play until Ethan wakes up just to give us some time to climb out of bed and get ourselves awake... Well, Tuesday was different. I noticed that Jackson was breathing rapidly... He had had a cough for a month, lots and lots of sniffles, but nothing scary. Rapid breathing - like you just ran a marathon and cannot catch your breath - that's scary. So I asked him to stop - just breathe normal, but he couldn't do it. When he tried, he'd choke up and gasp for air - then cry because it hurt. He was breathing like this - picture deep belly breaths - for 45 minutes without easing up when I texted Jenny - who asked Rhonald - who asked me to check his number of breaths. Apparently, normal breathing for his age group should be 20ish to 35ish breaths in a minute... Jackson was breathing at 48. (Seriously, try to take 48 breaths in a minute and you'll be exhausted in a few minutes). Rhonald said waiting on the doc office to open is a bad idea - head to the ER. I knew he was right. He said the biggest concern
is that a kid breathes like that and gets wiped out and then can't breathe anymore.... So Ryan had him at the ER by 730am. They immediately gave him a breathing treatment and that helped tremendously. He started breathing more normal after that - so they did a chest x-ray and the ER doc said everything came back normal. He told us Jackson has "Reactive Airway Disease" which is basically a precursor for asthma. The thing is - he's too young to be diagnosed with asthma so that's what they call it when the other tests show normal.... The doc said he may have a virus which triggered this... gave J an oral steroid and an inhaler and sent them home. By the time J was back home, he was back to breathing very very rapidly again. I can't explain how frustrating this is... not really having any kind of real answer and seeing your kid breathe like this... Around 1p, I called the pediatrician office.... couldn't reach anyone til 2p. Finally I talked to the nurse. I got a follow up appointment for Wednesday morning. By this point, Jackson, extremely lethargic, fell asleep on the couch (which he NEVER does) and started breathing normal. The nurse told me that if he was breathing super fast like that again Tues night and the inhaler wasn't working, I'd probably have to take him back to the ER to get it to stop. Ugh. Tuesday night, at bedtime, he was back to breathing fast... but not as fast as before and he just wanted to go to sleep. After he fell asleep, Ryan ran up to check on him and he was back to breathing normal. Such a mess. He woke up Wed morning wound up and happy... but still breathing a LITTLE fast - certainly nothing like before... and he was being his normal playful self... So by the time his appt came, he was breathing well, but I took him anyway. He was grumpy, but breathing ok. The doc checked him out and said he "definitely" has allergies. He said that this can all be caused by not getting a handle on his allergy symptoms. He said that he "possibly" has asthma but there's no way of knowing that for sure at this age. He said it's crucial that we get a handle on his allergy symptoms - Allegra twice a day - blowing his nose properly, indoors when the allergy counts are high, etc. He also said it's a "must" that we keep the inhaler with us at all times and then he wants J to take a 2nd steroid every day for a month to try to get this crap out of his lungs. He said if he doesn't need his rescue inhaler much for the next month, we can stop the steroid. In the meantime, I still don't really feel like I have many answers.... I still feel confused as to what happened.... nothing really has changed in his life and he's not ever had problems like this before... But I'm thankful that he doesn't have pneumonia or anything....I hope we don't have any more rapid breathing like this... It's SO strange! Hopefully, my boy will be ok now. Dear Lord, PLEASE no more ER's unless it's me having a baby!
