Peidatric Pulmonolgist Appointment

In this, the month 'o illness in the Pruetz house, we continued our tour of medical offices by seeing Dr. Tarak Patel, a pediatric pulmonologist.

Dr. Patel saw Grace in the hospital last week and we both agreed that it would be a good idea for both babies to see him because of their long histories with respiratory infections and wheezing.

We were first seen by a medical assistant who told me that we were going to play a game. She said she usually calls it, "50 questions," but that this time we would play, "100 questions," -- 50 for each girl.

So we started with Grace, which really screwed me up since I almost always start with Faith on stuff like this because she was the first one born and because her name comes first in the alphabet.

The MA took Grace's medical, personal and family histories and asked questions about her environment, including the age of our house and the carpet inside it.

Then came all of the same questions for Faith, which were all answered exactly the same as Gracie's, with a few exceptions:

1) Grace has two heart conditions, Faith does not have any
2) Faith had an MRSA staph infection in the NICU, but Grace didn't
3) Grace was hospitalized with pneumonia, but we caught Faith's in time

After the game of "100 questions," Dr. Patel came in and listened to each girl. He asked a few more questions about their histories, etc and then started to discuss with me what he believes is going on. Here is how he explained it:

Lungs develop differently in utero than they do outside the womb. When lungs are forced to develop outside the womb, they are prematurely exposed to all of the air-born germs we encounter every day. Since the lungs aren't equipped to deal with these germs, they react with asthma-like symptoms, causing wheezing and coughing. This is what the girls' lungs are like every day, even at their healthiest -- always behaving like they are on the verge of infection.

When infections do occur, the lungs spring into attack mode, but already being partially constricted, they constrict even further and thus the respiratory distress begins. That explains why Gracie went from heaving breathing in the morning, but ended up hospitalized that night. Respiratory infections just escalate faster in preemies.

For now, we're going to treat this like asthma and do inhaled steroids every day via a nebulizer. The girls hate their nebulizer treatments, so I am not looking forward to this. But the steroids will help their lungs to remain less constricted on a daily basis and hopefully keep infections from becoming so intense so quickly.

We're still going to do the Cystic Fibrosis test, just to rule it out, but when I asked Dr. Patel how concerned he is about CF he said, "Not at all concerned." So that makes me feel a little better, but I doubt I'll get a full night's rest until I see the "negative" test results for myself.

I have to admit, I'm pretty happy with this diagnosis. There could have been way worse things that they could have been diagnosed with. Asthma is not that bad and their form is highly manageable.

Thank you to everyone for your prayers, happy thoughts and good vibes. Keep 'em coming!

Have a great weekend...

PS - It's a day early, but in case I don't post tomorrow, this will be my yearly birthday shout out to Bridget! Happy big 3-2, sister!