Scary Times

We have had a scary 24 hours here at casa de fox. To cut a long story short, Foxy started doing his very laboured breathing again yesterday afternoon, so I took him to the doc, and we wound up spending the night in hospital. He is now absolutely fine, but they said one too many times that it doesn't mean he will develop full-blown asthma. So to my mind, they were telling me that these are asthma attacks. Great.

The best of it was the NHS care, bar one nurse. First, I was very impressed that once at the GP's surgery, they really took over. They organized for an ambulance to take us to the hospital, who knew we were coming, etc. (Not that it was an emergency, just that I did not have the car with me and they did not want Foxy out in the cold.) I kept thinking what a pain it would be if I was having to worry about stupid insurance forms and junk like that. The practice nurse at our local doc's office was particularly good. She was the one who really told me how it will be. Like, even if he gets much better now, you WILL be in hospital tonight, and I doubt it will be the last time in his childhood. That sounds harsh, but it was done really nicely. She also really impressed upon me that I need to let go of my reluctance to call for an ambulance when his breathing gets laboured at night. Her words really ring in my ears now: "How much room for error do you think you have?" Message received and understood. Anyway, everyone at the hospital was really good too, except for Nurse Ratchet at 2 am. She totally traumatized Foxy and I with the inhaler, and it took us a good hour to calm down and get back to sleep. All in all, I would say Foxy had about 7 hours, and I maybe had 3. It was too light, WAY too hot, I was on a tiny mattress on the floor, it was just hideous. For me, absolute torture. We napped lots today. I am almost recovered.

Right now, it is hard not to catastrophize. I am worried that he will be a wheezy sickly child, and I don't see how that is going to work with full time employment. I would be more worried about Foxy, but he has yet to be bothered by the attacks. He is, however, very bothered by the treatment. We now have a hideous inhaler that he is supposed to have several times a day over the next several days. I don't see the point given that he is now breathing absolutely fine. Nearest & Dearest to check that out with her pharmacy buds.

I am crossing my fingers with all my might that this is merely a bad patch, and that the winter won't be blighted....