Ugggggh. What a night! Grant had a sudden asthma attack at about 1 this morning. I tried to gain control over the problem in the same progression I always do. We start off with a breathing treatment and wait ten minutes... If no luck, we do another breathing treatment and wait another ten minutes... This is when I would pretty much bet my bottom dollar the attack will be over. But Daddy is away, and that means that all things that would normally take a familiar progression decide to take a vacation. After doing two breathing treatments with Xopenex and a steroid, a dose of Singular and Mucinex and still not having any luck, I decided to try something that Cook's Children Hospital did when Grant was there two years ago with asthma. They switched back and forth between Xopenex and Albuterol. I figured this was our last shot before the E.R., so I crossed my fingers and emptied an Albuterol vial into the machine. Fifteen minutes later, I dare say he was actually getting worse. This is when I picked up the phone and called my mother and father-in-law b/c I needed someone to come stay with Rhett so I could take Grant to the hospital. If I felt the situation was bad enough, I would've called an ambulance or perhaps even ripped Rhett out of his pleasant slumber and drug him with us. But Grant was not turning blue/purple, and he was not using other muscles to help him breathe, so I really felt like we had time. While we waited for Dude-Dad to arrive to watch Rhett, I quickly packed an E.R. bag and got myself dressed while Grant did two more Albuterol treatments and cried from exhaustion, tired tummy muscles and the fear of shots that may occur once at the hospital. I tried to calm him b/c crying does NOT help asthma. I succeeded a tad. By then it was about 3 a.m., and I was starting to feel drowsy and really bummed that our night would spent in an E.R. and we would emerge sometime later that day with Grant being exhausted, poked and prodded, and I would be left with a nice hospital bill. Just when the feeling of "This stinks! Wake me up when it's over!" began to really set in........... Grant stopped coughing. Just like that. He went from coughing at least 50 times a minute (which I also know is bad for the heart and that's another reason I wanted to get him to the E.R.) to not coughing at all! FINALLY, the medicines had kicked in. After five breathing treatments (two Xopenex and three Albuterol) in 2.5 hours, an oral steroid, and a dose of Singulair and Mucinex, the episode had ended. Whew! Dude-Dad stayed a while as I put Grant back to bed to make sure everything really was okay and his babysitting services weren't needed after all. When all was clear, he went back home, bless his heart, and I was able to finally snuggle down into my warm bed next to Grant and close my eyes knowing that Grant's lungs were finally at rest.
I don't think he's coughed once today.
Now the big question is, why can't these things happen when Daddy is in town? Lest we forget the time when Grant was two and I was prego with Rhett and he stuck a pea up his nose which landed us in the E.R. Daddy was gone then.
Lest we forget Spring Break two years ago when Grant's asthma got so bad that we had an ambulance ride and E.R. visits to two different hospitals. Daddy was gone then.
Lest we forget last year's Spring Break when Rhett was admitted into Cook's in Fort Worth with dangerously low blood sugar caused by a stomach bug. Daddy was gone then, too. \
I'm telling you people, Kerry leaves, and I cross my fingers that bad luck will keep its distance. Maybe the next time he leaves I should also throw salt over my shoulder.
