I Still Hate Asthma

Just when you think you're outta the woods, it comes up and knocks you back down.

I allowed myself to be lulled into a false sense of security.  Thankfully, God DOES answer prayers, and Yougnest Boy has been without a "virally induced" asthmatic episode for well over a year.  As a matter of fact, if he hadn't there's a good chance he wouldn't have been running cross country this year.  As much as I trust his coach (who also suffers from asthma and therefore recognizes the symptoms and knows exactly how to deal with it), I would have been too over-protective mama bear-ish to allow him.  He's been great.  Even with these last two rounds of colds.

But.  Little One...notsomuch.  She hadn't had any episodes last year, either, and I had allowed our prescription for their rescue meds (Xopenex) to expire.  I mean, that stuff ain't cheap and it seemed silly to pay for it if we would never need it.  Besides, I kept the old stuff "just in case".  Well, "just in case" came late Thursday night/Friday morning.  She was breathing too fast when I put her to bed, but a fever can also cause that so I was only mildly concerned with the game plan being to take her to our (non-existent) peditrician the next morning.  Then at 2:47AM (as she's sleeping in our bed - a topic for a completely different post), she started coughing and couldn't stop - CLASSIC symptom.  I administered the old drug and offered up a prayer that it wouldn't somehow do more harm than good.  It didn't.  It was obvious that it helped tremendously (she thought it was now PLAYTIME - Yippee!).  And I was crying.  I just want SO BADLY for them not to have to worry about this.  I'm still hoping (and praying fervently) that she'll outgrow it as her brother seems to have. 

Oh, and as an added bonus:  She also has a double ear infection and walking pneumonia.  Current meds for her - Augmentin (antibiotic - 10 days), Xopenex (rescue med - as needed, every 6 hours), Budesonide (inhaled steroid- 2 days), and Prednisone (oral steroid - 5 days).  And Oldest Boy also has a double ear infection and has to take meds 3 times a day for 10 days.  My house looks like The Mommy's Walgreen.  {SIGH}

Stereotypes

During the last month of summer vacation, Baby Girl participated in a get-to-know-you sorta thing for the Girl Scouts chapter at her school.  She's only in Kindergarten, which is pretty young to start Girl Scouts, but they now have Daisy troops specifically for girls that age and they're supposed to meet - on average - once a month.  She absolutely LOVED it.  She's my artistic/crafty child and this was right up her alley.  There weren't a lot of other girls involved and she thought the whole thing was just fantastic.

Fast-forward to back-to-school time.  A paper comes home for GS registration.  Naively, I thought this meant you sign your daughter up and she will be assigned to a troop.  Boy, was I wrong.  It is up to the mothers of the girls (about 5 of us) to either become a leader and form a troop or not.  It REALLY pisses me off that no one seems to be willing to walk us through the process nor tell us if we can be involved in a different troop if our school can't get someone to be a leader.  What pisses me off even more?  It's just sort of ASSUMED (and you know what THAT does) that the resident stay-at-home-mom (yours truly) is the most obvious choice because, clearly, I have scads of free time in which I would typically sit around eating bon bons and watching soap operas!! (Sidenote:  Are soaps even ON any more?).  I swear, if I hear the Area "Manager" go on and on again about how she works numerous jobs, coaches cheerleading AND is the current "manager" I.WILL.SCREAM.  Look, I respect that other people are busy.  My problem is, if you can't do what you have commited to do at the level that's expected, you SHOULDN'T BE DOING IT.  Period.  Stop making excuses and let them find someone else to do it.  I could sit here and make excuses for why I can't do it but instead I'm just NOT going to do it.  Because I know that my current level of commitment to other things renders me incapable of being a troop leader to the best of my ability.  That, and the application to "volunteer" required more information than any job application I've ever filled out.  My only qualification for being a "volunteer" is that I have a 5-year-old daughter who desperately wants to join.  That's not enough (and I'm not talking about all of the background checks, etc. either because those I expected).  We'll wait a few years and try again.  In the meantime, I'm looking into dance classes.