My poor boy

Oh what a day! Tomorrow is J's 5th birthday, but because both kids have soccer games tomorrow, we had J's party today. He was so excited about his birthday and has been counting down the days for weeks now. The party went well, but the day didn't turn out on a such a high note.

Friday night, we went to the circus. I noticed that J started coughing quite frequently at the circus. Literally ever minute or so he'd let out a cough. It was late when we got home and he was just exhausted. He went to bed, refusing to take any cough medicine. I didn't worry though because we have a whole plethora of medicines--including the quick melt strips. I figured after he had fallen asleep, we will wake him and while he's groggy, give him a strip with some water & he'll be covered & none the wiser. (we've done this before ) Anyway, dh & I go into his bedroom to give him the strip and find he is sleeping away, covered in vomit! Can you believe it didn't wake him up?? Can you believe we never heard him vomiting?? So of course we wake him, clean him, strip the bed, etc. (that whole looooong process!) Now obviously, he's awake and refuses to take the strip. Fine. He coughs on & off throughout the night.

This morning, he sleeps until 8 am, which is LATE for him. He's a little quiet, but happy it's his party day and happy to open gifts from dh, O & I. We begin party preparations. He's still not quite himself, but not coughing quite as much as he was the night before. The guests arrive, his "favorite cousin" arrives and they go off and play together. When the food was ready, he ate just a little (very odd), coughing the whole time. When it was cake time, he ate just a little, coughing the whole time. When it was present time, he barely cracked a smile at any of his gifts and mind you, coughed the whole time. It had finally gotten to the point where everyone was looking at us as the neglectful parents (not really, but you get the idea)

We decide to leave everyone at our house (it was all family) and take J to Urgent Care. He's still coughing and now in the car, I'm beginning to hear a wheeze after each cough. The nurse checks him out, ask lots of questions, and then does his oxygen intake. The norm for his age is 96-97 and his intake was only 93-94. He has no fever. The doctor comes in, more talk & questions, and it's decided he has asthma. She tells us that they don't diagnose asthma right off the bat, they call it "restricted airways" until more tests are done, but pretty much, it's asthma. She gave him a treatment with a nebulizer, which helped quite a bit, at least the coughing ceased for awhile, then she made a mistake. She gave him liquid Prednisone, which he proceeded to vomit all over! She then switched to Prednisone in tablet form and oddly enough, he swallowed all five pills. She follows up with another nebulizer treatment and he was really doing well....a little nutty perhaps, but feeling much better. The nurse puts in a call to a supply company who will meet us at home and provide us with a nebulizer. She gave us 3 prescriptions to fill and we were on our way.

He's been much better since we got home, hardly coughed at all (although I am hearing him cough a bit now as I type this). We have to follow up with his pediatrician, but I feel so bad for him. I hope he doesn't have to take the Prednisone for an extended period of time (Prednisone is nasty stuff) or do the nebulizer treatments 3 times a day for years and years.

My poor boy...all of this on the day of his birthday party.