Reactive Airway Disease

***Here's a copy of an email we sent recently with an update about Austin's health.***

Friends and Family-

I'm writing with an update about Austin. As many of you know, he has had a recurring cough for about the past year. Every other week, it seemed, he was coughing again. Sometimes it would be accompanied by other cold-like symptoms, but often it wasn't. Well, we finally think we have an answer!

As of yesterday, Austin's doctor diagnosed him with Reactive Airway Disease. Here's a link for a quick article: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/reactive-airway-disease/AN01420. There are many more if you're interested in doing more research. Help yourself.

What we've learned in the less-than-24-hours since the diagnosis (that is to say, we're still learning, but I'm sending you what we believe to be true at this point) is that you can't officially diagnose asthma in kids as young as Austin (he'll be 3 in October), but he has the signs/symptoms of asthma. Our doctor said there are three kinds of asthma: 1) exercise induced 2) allergen induced 3) virus induced. The first one appears around age 8 and continues for life while the second two are usually grown out of around puberty/slightly before. Austin may have both of the second kinds, but the doctor thinks he for sure has the last kind. 

This might seem like bad news, but to us (right now, at least) it feels very much like good news! He's been prescribed a preventive medicine which will go into his nebulizer machine twice a day—morning and night. This should help the airways so that he doesn't have coughing fits anymore. But should he have one, we also still have the reactive nebulizer medicine which can be combined with the preventive medicine if necessary.

This is good news because we've held him out of stuff because of the cough—not attending church, BSF, etc, for fear he has some unknown/unseen virus, but the doctor said that unless he has other obvious symptoms—fever, sneezing, runny nose, etc, to not keep him home anymore because of the cough. He said we just need to explain his situation. (Austin's been "sent home" from nursery care situations because when he gets to coughing, it sounds like he might have pneumonia or something. It's quite painful to hear. But he's never once been found to actually be sick—x-rays prove no pneumonia, swab tests prove it's not the flu or pertussis, etc, but yet he's still coughing.) We've missed many a thing because of that darn cough, and now we should 1) not have to deal with it as much/at all and 2) have an explanation to use for when he does get to coughing.

Austin has an allergist appointment in a couple weeks (August 22nd in the morning) to determine if he is allergic to any particular things (ie. cats like his Momma). The appointment is a simple skin prick test similar to what they do on adults (and what I've had done) and may take up to 4 hours. 4 hours of being in a doctor's office, a good portion of which includes having to sit still. I'd love prayer for that appointment--that the movies and apps we have loaded onto the iPad entertain him enough to sit still for accurate readings. And I want CLEAR RESULTS. I want to know YES he is allergic to XYZ things, not he 'sorta seemed to have a reaction.' This will be helpful because we can not only avoid those things (like cats, for example, should that prove to be one of them), but we can also start giving him allergy medicine to help prevent any cold-like symptoms and/or an asthmatic reaction (coughing). So, prayers on those two things would be great.

It also feels like good news because hopefully he's able to generally live a better quality of life without the cough (without having it so often/so severely). He's often awakened in the night with a cough, for example, or unable to take a good nap because he can't quit coughing. We're hoping it makes playtime and rest-time better for him. And for us. 

We're headed to his first movie theater experience today to see Planes and we're super excited to be sharing this milestone with him. (Graham will be home with a sitter, so just it'll just be Seth, Austin and I.) I'm praying he doesn't have a single cough during the movie and that the preventive medicine makes a dramatic impact on his coughing in general going forward.

Thanks for past, present, and future prayers. I'll update you once he's had that allergy appointment.

Sena