Atrovent, my new best friend

Colin is still miserable with his cold, poor little guy. He’s all stuffed up, so breathing is hard, and his lungs are a little wheezy, so breathing is even harder. On Sunday night, I broke out the emergency inhaler the pulmonologist prescribed at our last visit to help Colin breathe easier. And like that, Atrovent became my new best friend. 

Okay, I’m exaggerating quite a bit there (what, me?), but it really did make a difference. Colin screams like you’re torturing him (which I guess in his eyes we are) when you give him  a treatment, and you have to pin him to the bed to do it. But within 10 minutes each time, he was breathing easier and back asleep.

Ironically, and fortunately, Colin’s regularly scheduled follow up appointment with the pulmonologist was yesterday. John took him this time, so he could meet the new doctor and ask his questions. Colin’s lungs are doing pretty good, just a little wheezy on the right side. No sign of the bronchiolitis at least. The doctor said to just keep doing what we’ve been doing for treatment.

He was worried, however, because Colin has fallen back further from the growth curve. We’ve been trying to get him extra calories since his last appointment, but I wouldn’t call it an all-out effort. (It’s too hard to make all-out efforts with two babies.) But now we’re going to have to step it up more. The pulmonologist also wants Colin to get started in speech therapy now (we were going to wait a bit until he started walking) to address some of his eating issues. 

So … I’ll be calling Early Intervention this week to schedule another assessment with the speech therapist and we’ll see when we can shoe-horn another session into our week. I do feel blessed, though, that we live in Illinois. I have heard horror stories from other parents on some of the online boards I visit about their EI experiences in other states. It makes me appreciate everything our program provides even more. 

Prayers for Colin to heal quickly, and that Veronica and Ethan continue to stay healthy. (And that Mommy and Daddy survive the chaos.)