To Your Health

I'm blessed to have a healthy family. I am never so foolish as to not wake up daily thankful for this. After all, I had the twin pregnancy where those little boogs crammed their entire teenage years worth of trouble into 40 weeks. And then added a NICU stay in for good measure. Before you panic, that NICU stay can entirely be summed up as being born at 35 weeks and inheriting the wimpy white male gene in abundance from their mother. Strong work, boys. Strong work. So yes, I am thankful every day that I was given a happy and healthy family. But that doesn't mean I can't have my chain rattled a little every now and then.

My two year old went to the doctor for some wheezing today. No surprises there. We've traversed this road many a time with a couple bouts of RSV, renting the home nebulizer machine a few times here and there and teaching him how to breathe his "magic gas" to feel better.  Over the last couple weeks we've listened to him cough and then some, but again, no surprises either since this has been the fall of ear infections and cold. Heck, his whole preschool was one big booger for the month of October with the changing of the seasons. But today was different. Today we were told something that caught us off guard. Asthma. That one word throws you for a loop and changes your perspective. Turns you into a bit of a freak really. I might have won MegaMillions for all the times my husband has told me to simmer down today.

But I wonder now, despite his cheerful disposition and insistence I eat playdough ice creams while making "macamonis", did I miss something? Did I miss some crucial symptoms during this long fall of ear infections and post nasal drip? Of coughing and runny noses? Is it my fault? And then I push the self doubt aside and drum up the images of sickly asthmatics that make the news and one reads about in the papers. So I start thinking forward about how I need to march on to prevent asthma attacks, all the while watching the still cheerful child, now begging to play outside in his first snowstorm, pulling out snowboots while my mind races.

I start to formulate unanswered questions left lingering in my head: Am I supposed to carry inhalers now, even though he's never had an attack? What happens if, god forbid, he's at preschool and some hidden dust bunny get kicked up? There's no nurse there and Mommy and Daddy are far away.... (ignoring the fact that the month of boogers would probably get him first). What about our family cat? Is he allergic? Did I do something wrong by bringing her into our lives? (Told you I turned freakish). How do we keep him away from smoke/from leaves/from mold... My head started spinning like a disco ball at studio 54.

It is bad enough I joke that I will follow the child to college and live there. And now we add this diagnosis that seems so out of the blue. You may ask me why I am so full of self-doubt and worry, but see, I'm his Mommy. I made a promise when he was born that I would fight to the death for him. Take care of him. Heal him. So while, yes, I still have my happy, healthy family; today I was a worried, caring, loving Mommy first.