Well, today was the day. We had Austin's much-anticipated allergy appointment. They did a skin prick test for 16 different environmental and pollen things, and the results were NEGATIVE. "Not allergic to anything." The doctor did say she wants to test him again when he gets closer to 5, but at this point he's been given an Asthma Treatment Plan even though they can't diagnose him with asthma. A good friend (whose sons both have asthma) tells me that it's simply a matter of a long enough history of the preventive working--a big enough pattern developed. If we try this for awhile and then stop and it returns (again and again), then we know it's asthma.
The plan for now is to give him a nebulizer treatment each night with Pulmicort in it. And if he gets a flare-up, we give the reactive medicine, Albuterol. The allergist said that we might could start doing an inhaler soon, but that would mean we have to do two puffs twice a day instead of one nebulizer session at bedtime. The nebulizer combined with storytime at bedtime seems to be working ok, so I don't want to mess with that just yet.
After we finished with the appointment we had some time to kill while waiting for Daddy to finish his physical which was just down the hall from Austin's appointment, and we occupied some of that time by doing a series of photos with his sticker and sucker. ;-) He was in pretty darn good spirits after just having spent an hour and half in a doctor's office. Thanks, Cars! We went to Chick-fil-a for a fun lunch afterwards and he seems totally normal now. I had prepared for the worst and it was MUCH better than I had feared--the during AND after. He ate a good lunch and took a great nap. Now it's off to swim lessons!
Here are some pictures from today.
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| We started watching Cars pretty much right away. This is him occupied while I'm answering 3,254 questions. |
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| Ready for testing to begin. |
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| And once it had begun. |
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| The H and top right under A are histamine control markers. It's just to make sure he didn't have antihistamine in his system. They are the only thing that had any sort of reaction. |
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| You're supposed to lie down the whole time, so they don't bleed into each other, but he kept wanting to itch his back and thus we sat up, lay down, sat up, and lay down again. All while watching Cars. Thank God for iPads. Seriously. |
And once we were done, they wiped off his back and then put some lotion on it. Hours later it looks totally normal except the writing they did. Here is his photo shoot with his "prizes."
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| A Tow Mater sticker! |
Here's hoping (praying, really) that this is the answer. If the preventive doesn't get rid of the cough, I think (as far as I understand it) we're back to square one and that's not a place I want to end up. Pray with us?
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