Say What?!?!?

This is a letter I got in the mail a few days ago......



Since when do you find out your kid may, or may not have asthma by mail? And by your Health Insurance, not by your PCP? This is new to me. I opened this, and literally said "WHAT?!?!" really loudly, making my kids suddenly take notice of me. I had been trying to get them into the car so we could leave, and they were doing their best to ignore me completely-yell out "WHAT" and they are all ears.....I may be onto something. Anyway, I read that and immediately launched into 20 questions with Ben.

Me "Do you feel like you can't breathe sometimes? Like after you are running?"

Ben "I don't know what that feels like. What do you mean?"

Me "When you run, do you sound like (then did my best asthma/wheezing impression. I think I sounded pretty dead on. I should be in asthma commercials...)

Ben "Not really."

Me "Does running around make you cough a lot?"

Ben "Yes."

Nick "Me too. I sound like (winded kid impression) after I run."

Me "That's normal Nick. That means you ran fast."

Nick "I do run fast."

Ben "No you don't. I run faster than you do..."

And I lost them. This is typically how any conversation goes at my house. Someone feels left out, and Ben has to say he's better than them since he is the oldest.

I need to call and make appointments for Nick and Nathan at the pediatrician, They have been sending me reminder postcards for months, but I dread the paperwork. The 20  page packet that tells you if your kid is 'normal' or not compared to other kids their age. I usually have all the boys with me, so sitting down and paying any attention to the questions, and asking the boys "Nick can you hop on one foot and rub your belly at the same time?" & "Nathan, can you say the alphabet in Pig Latin? No?! I'll just put sometimes...." is really distracting. It doesn't get much better once I am in the room either. Making sure the boys don't climb up, and jump off the examining table, and watching them so they don't steal anything out of the drawers while holding a clinging baby who is terrified we are there to get him shots-doesn't allow me time to really listen to what is being said to me. Maybe, he said something about asthma, but I really don't think he did. That is a word that I would think would stick out in a conversation. Like, swearing. Tell me you don't zone out on things and then suddenly you hear it....

"Blah, blah, blah.....F******..."

Suddenly you are all ears. "Did I really just hear that?" You turn to the person next to you, "Did they just say what I think they said?" There are certain things that get your attention in life, and I would like to think that if I hear the name of a disease in the same breath as my child's name, I would pay attention. I guess I should get on the ball and make the appointments for the other boys so that I could bring it up with him.

I wonder if it is because we have a nebulizer? Ben gets croup every time he gets a cold. It sounds horrible and scary, and leads to bronchitis, so our wonderful Dr. P gave us a nebulizer, and a ton of alboterol that works like magic for him. The treatments with it help him breathe so much easier! It was a life saver during the cold/flu season last year. Maybe the fact that they paid for that gave them the impression he has asthma. I would think that since he hasn't been prescribed any inhalers, that means no. I don't know. They were very helpful though. They sent us a paper explaining Asthma, and gave me the kick in the butt I needed to get off my butt and get these kids seen.

I'm just old school, and have a hard time taking healthy kids to the doctor. Stuff had to practically be falling off for my dad to take us, and I only remember my mom taking me when she thought I might be faking a cold just to stay home. At least that's how I saw it.....and the A-hole doctor didn't help. He said he couldn't find anything wrong with me. Jerk! I was feeling bad that day, Mom. Just so you know. All these years later-I wasn't lying.