reactive airway disease

Jamie has been sick about half of the time since October. He's had 5 colds, all lasting about 2 weeks, one ending in an ear infection, plus an unrelated week's worth of diarrhea and the worst diaper rash I have ever seen. It has been rough. He got a cold earlier in February, and after a couple days it turned into a terrible wheezing cough. His doctor put him on an antibiotic and a steroid and it seemed to have cleared up. That was about 2 weeks ago. Then on Monday Jamie's nose started running, and yesterday he again developed that horrible wheezing. He couldn't sleep from the coughing and wheezing and slept for less than an hour at naptime (typically he sleeps closer to 2 1/2 hours), and it only got worse as the day went on. Last night was TERRIBLE. He had such difficulty breathing that he woke up about every hour and a half crying at the top of his lungs. It was a looooong night.

He woke up just after 6 this morning, laboring so hard to breathe, and he couldn't stop crying. We threw on clothes and took him to the ER at Children's Hospital. After some desperately needed industrial snot-sucking and a breathing treatment (all of which he hated and kept him screaming his head off), he was diagnosed with reactive airway disease, which basically means he has symptoms of asthma but they don't want to call it asthma because babies his age most often grow out of it. The doctor said these two wheezing episodes were likely triggered by colds. If only I could keep him from getting any more! It also doesn't help that Knoxville has atrocious air quality. Hopefully Jamie will outgrow it and we'll eventually move somewhere with cleaner air.

We were sent home with a nebulizer so we can continue to give him breathing treatments and a prescription for a steroid to help with the wheezing as well. I already gave him one breathing treatment since we got home and it went considerably better than at the hospital. I set him up with some youtube videos of Elmo, and he didn't fuss at all - a miracle after how he reacted the first time. He's still breathing faster than normal and is still congested, but he's no longer coughing or wheezing, and he's peacefully asleep now, getting some much needed rest. Poor little monkey! It has been breaking my heart to see him so sick.