So tired, tired of coughing...

Spending a few days feeling (and looking, wow you should see me!) like crud can make a mama think. Or over think, you've been there right? Yesterday, I made it back to the doc. A series of complications got me off the couch with my kids in tow to get there, but we made it. It is the most moving around that I have been able to do since the last trip to the doc so at least that's something. I am guessing that I really do look as bad as I feel because they took me right back (to the "I don't want what she has" room) and checked my sats. 96. I feel this deprived of breath at 96? We have been sent home with Ben satting below 95. How must that feel for him? Is it frightening? Is it so common for him to feel uncomfortable that this is just one more thing? Is that why he will let me hold him and tell him that he is going to be alright? Because he needs to be assured? Why doesn't he complain more? Is it just another unpredictable aspect of being Ben so he is willing to roll with it? Am I glad that I don't know the true answers to most of these questions? Hmm. Keep in mind that I am in an after hours clinic simply because my docs office had no openings. Too may sick folks. So now I have a doc asking me how I am feeling, without caring a bit. She asked how my breathing felt. I told her that it feels like someone is squeezing the bottom of my throat, that there are elastic bands around the bottom of my lungs and there is a stabbing pain just to the right of my spine every time I breathe. She looked at me and said "Oh that can't be right. Most people describe it as a tightening in their upper chest and just behind their throat." How is it OK to utterly disregard the answers that you solicit. I FEEL LIKE I HAVE ASTHMA< CROUP AND BROCITIS ALL AT THE SAME TIME! The Bad Lady was just another bully in a white coat. She is just the kind of person who I would never accept for my children. Jerk! Well what is has come down to is that this little bug has brought out my asthma. It (my asthma) doesn't bother me much, in fact I don't even have an inhaler anymore. Last time I used one was when I was pregnant with Kiera. I really dislike the side effects of albuterol so even when it does show a hint of aggression I don't "treat" it. But, can't breath so treatment it is. FYI, I do not recommend administering albuterol plus anti-inflammatory in a tiny room with a little girl who tends to tip toward the bouncy side and is very susceptible to anything with an "agitation" warning. Just sayin. Things got a bit interesting after that. Anyway, one treatment and my entire face was numb. I turned into a shaky ball of quiver to the point that it was hard to talk. And I, of course, want to cry for all the times we have hit my little dude with two or three of these in short succession. My goodness. To have no control over the decision, no solid grasp of the reason and even less of an understanding of the side effects that result! I am really going to have to work on getting him better words for what his little body is told to deal with! After being assured that any other thing I mentioned was my imagination (lung pain? what lung pain?) I was off to pick up scripts. Inhaler, steroids and the useless little "pearls" that always seem to be the next choice after cough meds with codeine (which I can't take). Why has no one though to choose a different med to mix with cough meds? Today, I am beat. I don't feel as BAD. No fever and now I can breath a bit more. It feels like I haven't slept in days which I guess is true. I am up again because flat doesn't work and coughing is just to dang painful now that I am not coughing through the asthma sponge. I am sitting out here listening to my sweet tired little family cough through their sleep and feel so bad for the little ones. Dave's a grownup, so he knows the drill. But the babies in our lives, we expect so much from them. We ask them to not make it harder than it has to be. And all that we can offer them in return is our warmth and assurance. We ask them to take our word for it. And they often do. Amazing little humans we have among us. Or, I could just be an over thinking whip of a grownup who has gone soft to the unpredictability of life. Yep, that could just be it.