We have another Puff the Dragon in our family. Over two weeks of coughing and my husband is now diagnosed with bronchitis. He and my son have been sharing war stories about tight chests, wheezing, crackling and using inhalers/nebulizers. I remembered yesterday that I had a stethoscope in storage since his toddler days when he had RAD. Using some tips from a friend, I listened to everyone’s lungs. Everyone sounded great except my husband. However he had to compound the problem by not breathing, then by making loud noises. He did this on purpose to give me a hard time. Finally I could hear the difference between good lungs and lungs that need some treatment.

Since ds sounded good, I expected our follow up at the base Friday to go like a charm. Well, part of me worried because I got the same doctor who diagnosed him with allergies in the beginning. To our surprise a man called us…the husband of the first doctor. I gave him the medical history and explained the civilian doctor diagnosed him with ear infections, sinus infection and walking pneumonia. This doc got angry with that diagnosis and said it was only allergies. In exasperation I gave him "the look" and he backtracked.

Then he told me to completely change up ds’ usual allergy meds. After some doubtful questions from me, he said to keep doing what we’ve been doing. Apparently he thought these allergy meds were new.

He reviewed the entire health history; that takes a while with ds. Some good things were that he suggested we have an inhaler with us at all times just in case. I like that because when ds was a toddler, he was on several inhalers, up to 10 asthma meds. When he was phased off of all but zyrtec around age 3, I worried what we’d do if another attack popped up. Now all I have to do is renew the script yearly with a doc. Well that’s if the doc agrees to it in the future. Sigh.

The other thing is to repeat a lung capacity test. DS had a couple of types a few years ago. The one test showed some lowered lung function so they gave him an inhaler and then he did worse. Puzzled, they chalked him up as being different (which my kids and I definitely are! We always amaze the doctors for not fitting into the norm) Now I’ll suggest we wait longer after the inhaler to see if the lung function improves, because that is how it seemed to be with my ds during the walking pneumonia.

On the funny side, while waiting to see the doc, there was a little one year old girl who took a liking to ds. He was trying to read his literature book but she kept flirting with him. Finally he told her to put her shoes on. She had trouble getting the first shoe on so she stood lopsidedly in front of him, pointing at him. He gently fixed that shoe and put her other shoe on her too. With delight she gave him a big smile and walked off. He was relieved to get back to Beowulf.

After a long wait at the pharmacy, we began our short drive home. Everyone on base was getting off work at 430 pm and I sat on the main road in front of the hospital for nearly 20 minutes, barely inching ahead. Finally we covered the rest of the 7 miles in no time. Entirely exhausted and disgruntled from the afternoon, the first thing I did when I walked into the house was grab a couple of pieces of dark chocolate. Ahhhhhhhh!