A Day in the Life

Tuesday morning, Adam woke up with a lot of trouble breathing. He has had this problem and been diagnosed with pneumonia 7 times in the last 14 months.
In January, he was diagnosed with acid reflux. The acid reflux, presumably, has been causing a chemical pneumonia.

This time the x-ray showed 95% asthma and only about 5% pneumonia. Dr. Hudson said that Adam's lungs are "reactive." Which I guess means that he can still get pneumonia even with acid reflux medicine. Still he made it 3 months and 22 days since his last pneumonia. Last year, the longest he went in between episodes was 3 months. He almost hit the 4 month mark. Sigh.

So here's a day in our life. The first picture is of Adam when he first woke up. He was working pretty hard to breathe and feeling pretty miserable.
This next picture is of him in the car on the way to the doctors.


His blood oxygen level was 94 when we arrived so he got a some albuterol (or as my sister called it all-better-all). That brought his levels to 97-98 which made everyone so much happier.
A little more medicine, a couple of chest x-rays, a little more albuterol, 2 1/2 hours later and we finally got to leave.
Thank goodness for the iPod video. He watched Blue's Clues and Super-Why twice and that got us through the visit. He told me his worst part was when the doctor looked into his ears. Who would have guessed?
Then it was time for my favorite part, the handing over of our life savings. I think she looks pretty excited, don't you?
The doctor's office gives bouncy balls to all the patients. You would not believe how many of these balls we have at our house.

After the doctor's, of course we have to pick up all the prescriptions. Please don't ask how much they cost, our insurance does not cover any prescriptions until we reach our enormous deductible. Needless to say, buying the prescriptions makes a mockery of our frugal purchasing habits. A little bitter? Yes!

Finally, Adam was at home, feeling a little better, and on the road to recovery. Today has been much, much better.



This is a video of Adam, the morning of the attack.