Asthma bulletin

Nine degrees at 8am. Days of rain came to a stomping conclusion last night with thunder and lightning and feline goings-on in the murky darkness. This morning we have relatively clear skies and some blessed sunshine.

Anybody remember this post? Well, yesterday was our fourth check-up with the "doctor-with-the-dolly", the paediatric allergy specialist at the hospital, and PHEW! we passed! Given that he hasn't had a crisis since January, AJ's asthma medication will be stepped down and Mama is patting herself on the back.

So it was all worthwhile :

• Sourcing and dragging up anti-dustmite bedding, washing it religiously at above 60° and airing it frequently in the sunshine
• Sourcing and dragging up a new and desperately expensive Hoover Accenta with newfangled, washable (anti-dustmite) HEPA filter
• Frantic bobbing around with a wet rag and a mop-and-bucket in a deft imitation of Mrs Swabb (Habeas Corpus, York Festival 1985)
• Dead-of-night mercy dashes to our top-secret hideaway high in the Swiss Alps (where dust-mite don't exist), at the first sign of a wheeze
• The blanket ban on cuddly kitties from bedrooms (blanket-bedroom tee-hee)
• Keeping short-stay dogs on the dog shelf and strictly accepted only in the absence of AJ
• Laying down a death sentence for the crime of rolling in the hay
• Exporting AJ to his Oma in Germany at the appearance of even an estimate for dust-producing construction work, let alone the workers themselves
• Camping out on the top bunk when summoned by a cough
• Waging thermo-nuclear-biological-feline warfare against the mice, who seem to have decamped elsewhere, taking their doo-doo and their other nasties with them
• Lurking about in bushes with my medicine cabinet in my handbag when the kindergarten kids go on a field trip - just in case
• And stalking around every morning and evening in a starched white apron, inhaler in one hand, pills in the other and a clipboard under my elbow (to M's obvious delight - strange, strange boy).

Having decades of asthma/allergy nursing experience to call on from Grandma, from AJ's unshakeable kindergarten maestra and from our wonderful family paediatrician has been and remains invaluable. Thank-you all three for your patience, support and reassurance. Asthma, even of such a mild variety as AJ's, can be a scary condition for a Mama to cope with alone, half way up a mountain with no road and in a foreign language.

For his part, M. purchased a lifetime supply of those widgets he puts in his ears so that he had a chance of sleeping through the nighttime rumpus. Well, one of us had to stay sane, I suppose.