Tales from the Neb

Children are resilient.  When Violet was 10 weeks old, we took her to Paris for a family vacation.  Nuts, I know.  While we were there, she contracted a horrible case of RSV (a really nasty respiratory virus, for anyone who does not know).  Her lungs have been compromised ever since.

Every cold, every bad allergy season, it goes right to her lungs.  She gets horribly congested, has a hard time breathing, and battles fatigue.  Last year, she was hospitalized for pneumonia because her little body just could not fight on its own. 

Poor kid has been miserable this year.  There are many days we simply cannot let her outside because the wind, dust, and allergens are too bad.  She has spent the last two months with a constantly running nose, congested lungs, and lovely cough.  But she is so tough.  She fights to keep going.  It is hard to tell she is sick unless you ask her - she wants to keep up with the big kids.

One part of our daily routine is the nebulizer.  Any parent of a kid with lung problems is intimately familiar with this piece of medical equipment.  Praise the Lord we chose to buy one when Katrina was a baby and contracted RSV.  It has gotten a lot of use over the years.

Violet does great with the neb.  She will tell us if she feels like she needs a breathing treatment.  She sits on the couch and holds it herself.

But the effects can be interesting.  Neb treatments open up her lungs rapidly, flooding her little body with oxygen.  All of a sudden, she can breathe.  And it makes her super hyper.

She talks about a mile a minute.  Nonstop.  We have learned to let her stay up for a little bit after her treatments, otherwise she will just lay in bed and talk to her stuffed animals for an hour.  She also gets twitchy.

She has a hard time sitting still.

And thinks she is the baby Shawn Johnson.

I know that in the grand scheme of things, our little girls health problem is minimal, no big deal.  It is not life-altering, just routine-altering.  It is not the end of the world, just a part of the day.  But I must say, we could all, as adults, learn a bit about perseverance, patience, uncomplaining attitudes from kids.  Like I said before, they are resilient.