What A Morning!!!

J is ill with his asthma. He hasn't had a single problem with his asthma whilst we were living in Cyprus. We get back to England and within a week and a half his asthma kicks in again.

It started this weekend. The temperatures really seemed to drop over the weekend and it was freezing here. J started feeling a little unwell on Sunday night with a cough and cold bug that seems to be doing the rounds. By yesterday morning he was a bit more lethargic and by lunchtime it had gone to his chest and he was wheezing quite badly. We took him down to our local NHS Walk In Centre and he was seen by the triage nurse and then we had to wait an hour to be seen by another Nurse there.

He was so charming to the triage nurse even though he was ill. He said to her, "Hi I'm J. Pleased to meet you. What's your name?" and he held out his hand for her to shake. She said what a charming and polite boy he was. He is so funny like that and I love it.

Anyway eventually we get in to see the other Nurse who listened to his chest and said he definitely needed something but we didn't have any inhalers as he hasn't needed any for nearly 3 years and she decided that as he hasn't been prescribed anything for his asthma recently then she couldn't either and he would have to see a doctor so she phoned our doctors and managed to persuade them to see him straight away so we caught a taxi down to the clinic and he saw the doctor who prescribed him a new blue inhaler (for when he needs it) and a brown one as a preventer.

So he had his inhalers last night and didn't seem too bad but when he got up this morning it was obvious that he was worse than yesterday. He was really struggling to breathe so we tried his blue inhaler but he was really struggling still so we ended up having to take him up to the hospital.

By the time we got to the hospital he was really distressed and upset and saying he couldn't breathe. I was trying to calm him down as the more upset he got the worse his breathing became. The nurse came and took him straight through to a cubicle to help calm him down whilst I registered him at the desk. It was absolutely heartbreaking seeing him so upset. I was having to hold back the tears myself as it would have upset him even more. His oxygen levels (SATS) weren't great when we first arrived at 89% but we managed to help him calm down a little and get them up to 95% once he had calmed down. I just wished I could take the pain away from him and suffer myself instead.

He was seen by the doctor who gave him 10 puffs of his inhaler first using a spacer to make sure he got the full effect of each puff and J seemed to perk up a little after that. The doctor left us for half an hour and then came back and listened to his chest again and said it was still wheezy on the right side so he had to have a nebulizer and steriod medicine to take the inflammation out of his airway.

After his nebulizer he wasn't too bad so the doctor said that although he was still a bit wheezy that he had done all he could for J without admitting him to the children's ward and said we could go home with a prescription for steriods for J for the next 3 days but if he started to wheeze a lot again then we would have to take him back to the hospital and he would have to be admitted onto the ward.

So we're back home again now but he is still wheezing quite a bit so I am trying to persuade him to sit quietly which is almost impossible for him. I have a feeling we will end up back at the hospital later today as his wheezing is getting pretty bad again and he struggles as soon as he moves. I hope his asthma clears up soon as I hate seeing him like this.

Right had better go and give him some more of his puffer and hope it works or we'll be spending the night in hospital.