Another trip to the hospital

We found out about Ryan's asthma 9 years ago when he was admitted to the children's hospital on a Christmas night. We spent Christmas Eve at my grandma's house that year. She liked to have a fire going in her fireplace when it was cold and snowing outside, but that year it was more smoke than fire. We all felt it in our lungs. The next day we went to my parent's home for Christmas breakfast and Ryan was around their dog and by that night he was having a hard time breathing. Gavin wanted to take him to the ER but I tried to talk him out of it, "they will just send him home like they do every time. He just has croup and they always just send us home and never do anything for us." Good thing he chose to not listen to me and my good nursing advice, Ryan was admitted for several days and diagnosed with asthma. So far he has only had allergy-induced asthma around dogs (nothing with exercise, colds, etc.) and it isn't something we take lightly. He has a difficult time breathing after just a few hours inside a house with a dog. It was hard for him to understand this as a young child. He would ask all the time if he would be able to touch and pet dogs in heaven when he died. Not what I needed my 3 year old to be thinking about! We couldn't let him play or sleep over at friends' houses if they had a dog. And then, of course, both sets of grandparents have dogs!

We've done a pretty good job at keeping his asthma under control but there are the exceptions and this week was one of them. Gavin took him up to the ER on Monday night when Ryan started getting panicky and laying on the floor. He was admitted and started on breathing treatments, Prednisone, and oxygen. He was there less than 24 hours and hopefully this will be his last time there!

Getting a breathing treatment

His favorite thing about the hospital is the room service. They actually have really good food and let the kids order anything on the menu as often as they want. Ry was excited to have deep-fried shrimp, tomato cheese soup, tapioca pudding and a peach sunrise smoothie for lunch. Much better than school lunch!

Time for another breathing treatment and dinner. He ordered this while I was home getting all the kids situated from school to dinner. When I got back he told me, "I just ordered a bunch of side dishes." A bagel with cream cheese, mozzarella sticks, tomato cheese soup, and another peach sunrise smoothie (I drank most of his smoothie.) So yummy!

Mia and I spent most of the morning with him, but had to go home when Mia started breaking everything in his room.

He is still on the prednisone and breathing treatments but doing so much better. Does it make us bad parents if we let him play in his football game on Saturday?

I can't forget to give my awesome friends a big thank you! I had several friends call to see if they could bring us dinner. I turned them all down. My kids would think there was something up if there was a home cooked meal on the table. No need to mess with the routine. That night I had two friends show up a few minutes apart with two complete meals. My friends rock!!