Remember that time I let a two-year old Ava walk around with a broken hand for five days before taking her to the pediatrician for an unrelated ear infection and discovering the broken bone by accident? (story, bonus pictures) Stellar example of motherly instinct there.
Well, this time it's Michael. He developed a cough a couple of weeks ago. There was no fever, no runny nose, no obvious signs of illness. He was just coughing. At first it was a little. Then it was nearly constant. Finally I called the pediatrician. We discussed it over the phone. Our best guess was mild asthma triggered by fall allergies. We brought him in for a "listen" and to discuss treatment yesterday morning.
We walked out with a diagnosis of walking pneumonia, a prescription for some fancy antibiotics, instructions to use his inhaler faithfully three times a day, and a directive to return in 10 days to be sure we kicked it. Lovely. This time I let my 4 year old walk around with pneumonia for two weeks before calling in an expert. You'd think I'd learn to be a little less conservative about calling the pediatrician.
i'm new to your blog, but have a child with asthma - we're told at the first sign of a cough to start breathing treatments 2x/day with a steroid inhaler (we have pulmicort/budesonide) or nebulizer - whichever is used.
ReplyDeletealso - not sure how the asthma is treated in your home, our youngest has it mildly, but we keep him on singulair daily to help control the inflammation - works wonders. we truly made it through a summer cold without needing breathing treatments! the summer cold was a moist cough. now that fall is here though, we're back on them daily because of a dry cough due to allergies, ugh.
most likely, if you do that, it will keep from progressing to pneumonia... AND he also most likely did NOT have pneumonia the whole 4 weeks, so don't beat yourself up too badly!