Asthma?

Today we took Charlie to the pediatrician, after a night of coughing, crying, and generally not sleeping. Our normal doctor, Gwen, doesn't work fridays, so we saw a different pediatrician in the practice, Dr. Dudley.

After explaining the last year or so of our battle with the mystery cough that has once again reared it's ugly head even on month 5 of a daily steroid, she gave us a new batch of medicines and dosages to try. She believes that he has allergies, reactive airway disorder, and potentially a sinus infection on top of all that.

She gave me a new prescription of the Pulmicort at twice the strength he is currently taking. This is the daily steroid he has been on 5 months. She wants me to bump it back up to twice a day for a month and then once a day for another five months. (sigh) This will be a full year on this medication.

She gave me a prescription for Singulair, for him to take in addition to the Zyrtec he already takes daily to combat allergies.

When he has his coughing fits, he takes Xopenex in his nebulizer every 4-6 hours for 2 or 3 days.

Oh, and one of his tubes fell out.

She also wanted another round of x-rays to confirm/rule-out sinus infection and/or pneumonia, so we obliged and headed over to Austin Radiological Association to get them taken. Thankfully, Mark met me there so he could go in with Charlie and I could stay in the waiting room with Owen.

After it was over, the x-ray tech came out into the waiting room to tell me that Charlie was the best patient she had ever seen (I'm guessing of the 3-yr-old variety.) He was so proud of himself! So we decided to reward him with a family lunch at Fuddruckers, naturally.

When the xray results came in and Dr. Dudley called me, she said he did not have pneumonia, but a slight sinus infection that concerned her enough to start an antibiotic (Augmentin). She wants us to do the treatment and come back in a month to talk about all of it and discuss whether we need to see a pulminologist.

So if you've lost count, here's what my baby boy is taking on a daily basis:

• Zyrtec
• Singulair
• Xopenex - 6x a day
• Pulmicort - 2x a day
• Augmentin - 2x a day

This seems pretty idiotic for a 3 year old. I'm going to need to get my nursing degree just to keep up with the proper dosages!!

And even with all this, we still don't have a definitive 'asthma' diagnosis. SO frustrating!!

So enjoy your Labor Day 2011 and take a deep breath in honor of our son, Charlie the Chronic Coughing X-Ray Champion!!