#acute bronchitis is such a funny diagnosis to me

[happy-mountain-goats]

guyssss the doctor said my bronchitis wasa cute >>v<<

[southernmamaspeaks]

“All’s Well That Ends Well” and Other Pandemic Ponderings

My college-aged daughter has asthma. More specifically, she was diagnosed with severe, acute-onset, pediatric asthma as a child.

She is my first born child, and on top of all the normal first-time mommy feels, I was terrified because she barely made it through her first couple months. Less than a month after her winter-time birth she contracted RSV, a respiratory illness normally associated with premature infants. Two weeks later, she was diagnosed with pneumonia. I remember watching her little body struggle to get air in the Emergency Room, as the doctors hooked her up to IVs, and willing myself not to cry because I did not want to upset her.

The annual winter cycle of her being in, and out of the hospital continued for the first several years of her life. Always colds that turned into bronchitis that turned into pneumonia that turned into trips to the hospital. It was overwhelming, and scary. However, it was also our normal. I once braved driving in Hurricane Isabel to take her to the ER due to respiratory complications. I remember thinking it was funny I was more scared about whether the hospital was going to be open, than if we were going to get there safely during a Category 4 catastrophe.

Over time I learned what to look for- knew when that rattle in her chest was moving away from something I could care for at home into something that would require serious medical treatment. We seemed to rack up frequent flyer miles at the local pediatrician’s office. While all the doctors agreed she had asthma, we were told most doctors did not like to render the official diagnosis until after five or six years of age. So we stayed on our carousel, going round and round with illness every time cold and flu season hit our community.

We have tried the gambit of treatments: allergy shots, dietary restrictions, Corticosteroids, preventatives, rescue inhalers. So. Much. Medicine. I have also tried social distancing before it was posh. Exhausted by the inevitable illnesses her body would experience, I became hyper-vigilant. I would ask if there were smokers or pets in a home before birthday parties; I would make extended family wash hands, and change clothes if they smoked before being around her. I drove her to school because second hand smoke on children’s clothes on the school bus would cause an asthma attack. I would stay home from family gatherings if other kiddos were sick. Pets inside the house were forbidden; and do not even get me started about the pony Santa brought when she was four. However, no matter what we tried, she would always get that one respiratory illness per year which would throw us into needing significant medical intervention. To say those times were scary would be an understatement. I have stayed awake nights listening to the cadence of my daughter’s breath more times than I can possibly count.

However, I also remember very clearly speaking to an asthma specialist in my hometown who said it was useless to live in fear of the next big sickness. Her lungs were deficient, most certainly. In fact, once a spirometry test came back that my daughter’s lungs were functioning like a 70 year old with COPD. But we effectively had two choices, our doctor said: live like the living, or live like the dead. To date, there are no known cures for asthma. Doctors work to care for symptoms, and try to treat underlying triggers, but the inflammatory reaction and constriction itself that is asthma cannot be cured even with modern medicine. So we made a choice to live with the living.

While significant illness was a part of our life, so was limiting its effect on our lifestyle. I still carried epi-pens, and inhalers, and baby wipes, and eye drops, and Benadryl, and tissues wherever we went. But those items went to sporting events, birthday parties, dance classes, sleepovers, and field trips. I monitored her closely. I was well-educated and even more well-prepared for her medical issues. Yet I quit letting those things dictate our life.

When she started playing field hockey competitively in middle school I was worried it would be too much. However by time high school rolled around, she was managing her care on her own. Make no mistake, there have been frustrations along the way. I held her in my arms many times after practice as she cried because she wished her breathing came as easy as some of the other girls. She often played her season through at least one bout with bronchitis. And she had to walk that fine line between caring for her illness at practice, and not using it as a crutch to excuse herself from finishing the required physical conditioning.

Despite my worries for her on the pitch, I was more concerned as she decided on her life’s path. In high school she took a hard left turn into theatre. Musical theatre. I watched as she worked to overcome her asthma to sing onstage in front of hundreds of people. We worked hard to keep her fit, and healthy to support her voice. I worried about her choice, but sat back in awe over the last few years as she learned to negotiate her strengths to overcome what I always worried would be weakness. Currently she is pursuing her BFA in Theatre Performance at Virginia Commonwealth University, and has earned casted roles as a Freshman at Virginia Repertory Theatre in Richmond, Virginia. She dreams big dreams about who she wants to be, and where she wants to go; and I have no doubts any longer that she will achieve them.

What I do, perhaps, doubt is the current measure to distance ourselves from all life due to the possibility of illness which intensely affects the mortality of so few of the population. I have lived 19 years with a child who arguably could die from complications during flu season. And while I highly (I repeat, Highly) recommend packing our individual bags of preparedness, I do not at all recommend living as if we have already forsaken life. Constraining our rights to life, liberty, and happiness because of possibility seems to fly in the very face of the infinite variables of our existence. We are never promised tomorrow, dear friends. And knowing such information should precipitate the necessity of seizing our todays. I pray that each of you stays happy, and healthy in our new reality. My words are but a sounding brass in the cacophony playing out upon the world stage. And I understand intimately there will be losses, and sorrows during this time.

For our family ‘the curve’ will always be a reality. Yet time has taught me we also face inherent choices as a family as to whether we allow the curves of our lives to dictate our mode of living. In the propheticly titled All’s Well That Ends Well, Shakespeare writes, “The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together.” The current pandemic plaguing the world tangles the good, and ill of our earthly existence, and our terrestrial compatriots. There are many questions about the current state of affairs which must be answered by heads more sound than my own. But viewed outside of itself, this time of hardship is one of many that will be known in each of our lives. And when our lives have run their compass, we must be able to answer if we set our course and followed it straight on till morning, or veered with every fear-filled distraction.

May each of you find a balance in the noise. And may each of you find a Well-Made ending which empowers you to “love all, trust a few, and do wrong to none.”

Love,

Mama