Denny's Asthma

I had been out of the house for a little over 12 hours helping my brother move. Upon returning Monday afternoon September 7th, around 4:15 PM I became quite concerned about Denny's health. He had been sleeping on the couch all day and was breathing funny. He was breathing from his abdomen with a quite little help from his shoulders rising and falling. Pneumonia struck my mind immediately. I called wife into the room and found she had given 3 Albuterol nebulizer treatments during the day but that they didn't really bring improvement. We took a minute to count his breaths and couldn't believe that at the end of that 60 seconds he had breathed 63 times. Diane's CNA training taught her that 12 to 20 respirations was healthy and for sure NOT 63, by any stretch of the imagination.

A phone call was made, remember it was Labor Day, and of course no doctor's office was open on a holiday so a doctor on call at a nearby hospital told us to call the pediatric doctor on duty at the Salina, Kansas hospital, (50 miles away) and go prepared to spend the night with Denny probably being admitted.

The doctor at the Salina Hospital was called and he quickly concurred ... so we got to the ER there around 6:30 PM and in just a few minutes was taken to a treatment room where they put him on a oximeter, had an IV started, an oxygen mask installed, and was administered steroids to get the lungs to work right.

He would have been released that night except for this little gizmo called an oximeter. It measures the oxygen saturation in the blood stream. The doctor told us that if Denny could keep his oximeter reading at 92 or higher he could go home that evening. He could only keep it 88 to 90 with his lowest reading at 85. Every once in a while he could get it up to the mid 90's but it would drop back down again. So at 9:30 PM the doctor told us Denny would have to go on more steroids and that he would probably have to stay a few days at the hospital.

To this point Denny will have to stay till tomorrow, Thursday, September 10th, when they will start to try to wean him off his Oxygen mask. Everytime we take his mask off for bathroom breaks or his daily shower he complains he has trouble breathing. The doctor says he will probably have to take anti-asthma medicine daily from now on.

So, please pray that he can keep his oximeter readings at 92 or higher so he can go home tomrrow.

We'll keep you posted.