I feel heard

Every September with out question, Jacob gets a cold. Like most children, he coughs a lot. What isn't like other children is his inability to get over the cold within a week or two. His colds extend through the entire winter and into the early spring. Usually around late March, I can relax and know that soon his cycle will end. I've blogged about this in the past too, but when Jacob gets a cold, he will cough and cough and cough until he finally gags himself enough to throw-up. We have taken him in every winter to the Dr. to hear the dreaded words, "It's only a virus and it will take some time to pass." As Jacob's mom, I knew that there was more to it. Children do not normally throw up on a weekly, (sometimes more) from the common cold. I realized this was abnormal as my other 2 children have gotten older and get over the same virus within a couple days to a week.

So, today I brought him in again, and I was determined to not leave without something to help the problem. I was hoping for a nebulizer. Many nights in a week, when he is suffering the worst, I end up filling the bathroom up with steam and laying him on the floor. Almost instantly, he will stop coughing. Because it works so well, I have been doing it, although it wastes a lot of water and usually a lot of valuable sleeping time. So this morning, Jacob's pediatrician did a chest x-ray and prescribed an inhaler for him. She also prescribed some steroids to help his lungs work out whatever it is right now that is in there and he can't get out.

Here is my best explanation of her Dr. talk to me. Sometime while Jacob was an infant, his lungs were mildly damaged from a bronchial infection (I can tell you the exact time- 3 months old). Because of that time, his lungs are unable to work out the mucus like most children. His lungs continue to spasm until the point of throwing up happens which ultimately does clear his lungs for a while. Until the next time it happens. Like I said, that is a very loose translation of what she told me.

Hopefully, the inhaler helps his lungs from spasming. He could out grow this, or he could have to use an inhaler each time a cold comes on. All I know, is that I feel like someone finally did some more investigation to this odd behavior for him and I am very relieved to have more of an explanation and I am hopeful that the inhaler will help stop so much throwing up.