Asthma Attack!

The hope is that when your child has one you will be prepared to handle it ~ I don't think I was. Early Saturday morning, around 2:30 am we were woken up to the sounds of Jack coughing, screaming and gasping for air. He was pretty hysterical and I have to admit I wasn't so calm myself. This has happened once before about a year ago but he woke from his nap (not in the night) so Branden and I were awake. That time we ended up calling 911 since it was our first "real" experience with Asthma and were unsure what was going on and what to do.

Okay, so back to Saturday, all of the commotion was so loud that it woke Benjamin and Annabelle. Ben was a bit startled but he was fine and just wanted to see what was gong on, Annabelle on the other hand was not a happy camper so that of course added to the stressful situation. We immediately gave Jack his nebuliezer treatment, which is what the paramedics did the last time this happened. He didn't respond at all and he was fighting us the whole time. We opted to give him a second breathing treatment because we remembered that the paramedics needed to do that as well, plus we felt we had no choice. It was either give him a second treatment or off to the ER we go and I truly could NOT bare the thought of going there again.

After a little more than an hour Jack was calmer and was breathing much better. He was also completely amped up from the medicine (Albuterol). Although we were ready to go to bed, he was UP and ready for some fun! finally went to bed at 4:30 and he and Branden spent the remainder of the night/morning on the couch. I couldn't believe just how up Jack was. He stayed awake until 1pm when he finally went down for his nap. Boy, was Saturday a hard day!

We are VERY grateful that these asthma attacks have been few and far between but my goodness it sure is stressful for a mom when it does happen. I'm going to call the Dr. tomorrow and see if we should have a different type of medicine for those situations. I keep hearing the commercials in my head "your fast acting inhaler". Well we don't have one of those! I also kept thinking to myself "thank goodness Branden is here" I don't know if I could have set up the nebuliezer that fast or "what if we had been away from the house" then what would I do? It's a lot to think about.

Asthma is a scary thing and although Jack's has been diagnosed as mild it still worries me, especially this time of year!