It's cold season again!

Oh boy, do I ever hate the fall, especially now that the kids are old enough to go to school/preschool. Actually, I have a love/hate relationship with Fall, and Spring for that matter. They just wreck havoc on this family. Taylor has a cold, okay, really just a cough now. When he gets a cold, all of the other symptoms run their course very quickly, typically 5 days-ish. But the cough manifests itself in his poor little chest making it difficult for him to catch his breath between coughing fits and progressing quickly from nothing to pneumonia. We have recently found out that this is a form of asthma. He gets an asthmatic wheezing in his chest when he gets sick. Thanks goodness that he has never had a "typical" wheezing, gasping asthma attack. Instead he just coughs uncontrollably. I have learned to give him a quick shot of his rescue inhaler to open his airways right up and calm the cough.

Not yesterday. We went to a Halloween party yesterday. We were having fun, playing with other kids and mommies, when Taylor started coughing, and coughing, and coughing. He couldn't stop. So, like any mom, knowing exactly how to handle her child's medical condition, I rushed to my purse for his inhaler. I gave him two quick shots. His cough calmed for all of five seconds. Okay, now panic is starting to set in a little. I began quickly gathering our stuff, while my child is coughing so hard that he is spitting up. I rush the kids out to the car, calmly, as I may feel panicky, but I definitely don't want to alert them. Into the car everyone climbs, I stomp on the peddle going as fast as the twisty, turny, windy, narrow streets will let me. Luckily we were only a short mile and a half from home. I quickly get the medicine into the nebulizer and start Taylor on a breathing treatment, hoping, praying that this will stop the attack. Otherwise, it is off to the Emergency room. As he breathes in the medications, his cough slowly subsides, indicating his airways are opening. Whew. My adrenaline finally balances out and panic slowly leaves me. I haven't had such a feeling in quite awhile.

So today, I kept Taylor home from school to give him the maximum number of breathing treatments we can today. I have got to knock this virus out of him. I just hope this will work, it has in the past. Keep your fingers crossed for us.