Saturday, December 05, 2015

Asthma: the Unknown Territory.


Mother / daughter Selfie by Tess

In general, this has been a blog about overcoming severe illness and the gratitude that flows from that, so it feels sadly strange to document new struggles with our wee girl's asthma.

I'm aware asthma is a lamentably common illness, so I hope in just saying it like it is (for us, anyway) it'll be useful to others who are affected. I'm hardly in a position to offer advice or solace.

Ever since Tess started school, she's had a run of infections and the throat-y ones just go for her, so here she is, back on another five day course of steroids plus another new drug (Montelukast / Singulair) that has a mean list of possible side effects. She's been on the brown puffer for 4 months now.

I am finding Asthma UK to be very helpful. Any small comfort  in times of stress. As a friend said to me today, 'nothing affects you like your child's well-being being threatened.'  It makes me wonder how my poor mother bore it when I was ill for so long. Thank god I managed to get out the other side. I suppose that's what I hope most for Tess - that the condition improves as she gets older. 

Oh, the heart-melt of bringing her a glass of water to the sofa when she was ill and she said with utter sincerity, Thank you Mummy, as if I had just saved her from a bear pit. (Not a monkey pit, though- she'd enjoy that).


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