The Little Asthmatic

Anyone who knows Hazen knows that the kid gets winded. Really, really, really easily. As in, much faster than any 2 year old, and possibly any person in their mid 80's ever should. We knew that Hazen would probably have some respiratory issues pop up as a result of his prematurity at birth, but when the popped up, they really came out of the blue! It started with him getting winded if he would run around outside too much. Then, if he was running around crazy in the house for a long time, he would start to cough. Finally, about a week or two ago, we could hardly make the poor kid laugh or he would be on the floor in a fit of coughs. Luckily, his 2 year well child visit was a few days later. I took him to his amazing Pediatrician, Dr. Lauret, and it was very quickly determined that our little buddy has a pretty decent case of Childhood Asthma. We already have a Nebulizer to give him breathing treatments when his breathing is giving him problems, but the doctor decided to go from PRN (as needed) treatments to twice a day.

While this diagnosis made me a little sad for my baby who can't run and play quite as much as other kids can, it made me so grateful for modern medicine, and its ability to help our little boy so easily! It's incredible seeing how Hazen associates the Nebulizer with feeling better. How many 2 year olds do you know that will sit on your lap and hold the medication in their mouths for 15 minutes twice a day? When we tell him it's time for medicine, he runs right to the couch and clamours to get into our laps. What a blessing for Hazen to understand that we're just trying to make him feel better!

We also had a close call with the Pharmacy. When we got the prescription for his Nebulizer, we got one for Albeuterol, which is for Acute Asthma, and Pulmacort, which is a steroid that would treat the chronic asthma. After paying a ridiculous amount of money for the prescription, I was on my way. I got in the car, and started fiddling around with the Pulmacort- to see how many days my $98 dollars would last. (The answer was that I would have to refill it 2x/month. Ouch.) I realized that I couldn't figure out how to open the dang medicine, so I drove around to the Drive Through Pharmacy. While the Pharmacist was trying to figure out how to open the medication himself, I decided to look at the insert for the med. I had taken a test in Pharmacology about medications for Asthma the day before, so I felt pretty happy that I was about to make sense of a lot of the technical mumbo-jumbo on the insert. As the pharmacist was taking his fine sweet time, I felt the need to flip the insert over and keep on reading. As if the words were in bold type, size 30 font (they weren't), I saw that the particular medication was contraindicated in children under 6 years old. I immediately asked the Pharmacist, who told me that sometimes Pediatricians prescribe things slightly outside of the recommended doses for the medication. Ordinarily, I would have taken his advice and been on my way, but this time I felt the need to do some more research. I kept on reading until I came across another portion in the insert that instructed its users that the medication was absolutely not to be taken more than every other day. We were prescribed to give Hazen this medicine twice a day- 4 times the recommended amount. I informed the Pharmacist that there was something that was wrong, and with a look of concern in his eyes, he told me he needed to look at the Prescription another time. Long story short, the prescription that was written wasn't completely clear, but the Pharmacy opted not to call to clarify. He looked at me earnestly and told me that he didn't know HOW I caught it, but he was so so glad that I did. This medication had the potential to do Hazen great harm.

I got into my car and tears ran down my face as I drove home, audibly thanking my Heavenly Father for helping me catch the mistake. I thanked him for letting me have the test when I did, because if this mistake had happened even one week earlier (when Hazen's Dr appointment was actually supposed to be), I simply didn't know enough about the medication to catch it. I thanked him for a mind that could retain information, and, for out of all the times that I miss promptings and don't catch on to the things that He wants me to, letting this time be one that I did.