Life as an Asthma Mom

I often look back and wonder how differently life would be if my family didn’t have allergies and asthma. Our family of 5 all have environmental allergies, food allergies, and asthma.

When I say we have asthma, it’s not the kind of asthma where we use our inhaler once or twice a year. I’m talking about severe asthma – as in my kids had 12 hospitalizations and 2 of those were ICU admissions.

Our house is full of various rescue/reliever inhalers, controller inhalers, spacers, peak flow meters, oxygen monitors and boxes of Albuterol for our nebulizers.

We were frequent visitors to the pharmacy, pediatrician, After Hours service, Urgent Care, Emergency Department, and hospital.

Always on high alert

I was always careful. If a neighborhood kid came over to play and they had a runny nose or were coughing, they would be sent right back home. The common cold always led to pneumonia for my kids (and another hospitalization).

I would carefully try to avoid any of our asthma triggers, but it’s hard to avoid cats, dogs, flowers, trees, wildfire smoke, poor air quality, etc.

We were regulars at Asthma Doc’s office since we were there every week for YEARS. My kids weren’t  on the same schedule for allergy shots so that meant my middle son would need shots every other week, while my daughter was just starting and needed shots twice a week. When she was almost done with 5 years’ worth of shots, my oldest son started. I’m pretty sure my minivan could drive itself to Asthma Doc’s office.

It was hard to schedule soccer practice, swim lessons, etc. around shot days. My kids couldn’t do any physical activity for 2 hours before or 2 hours after allergy shots because it increased the risk for anaphylaxis. Luckily we only had anaphylaxis once from allergy shots.

Managing asthma and schedules

I had an oversized calendar on the wall and would use a different color marker for each kid’s activities. I would carefully plot out sports, scouts, parent-teacher conferences, dance recitals, band concerts, shot days, biologic shot day, surgeries, etc.

When one of us would get sick, it would go through the whole family. Managing medical care for the kids and myself was challenging. I would use a different chart to track the timing and doses of controller inhalers, breathing treatments, oral steroids, and antibiotics.

The Hubster and I would take shifts of staying up during the night to check on the kids’ symptoms and oxygen levels. Why do they always bottom out at 3 AM?

My kids were often upset that they couldn’t do all the normal things their friends could. Asthma Doc told Middle Son that he couldn’t go on Scout campouts because he would be too far from medical help. Daughter tried horseback riding lessons, but that didn't last long because she is allergic to horses and had too many asthma attacks. We would literally spend weeks indoors from wildfire smoke or poor air quality. We couldn't go to the lake or even for a walk around the block when the smoke was thick.

Packing for a trip was stressful. We had to pack a lot of medicine, inhalers, nebulizers and an oxygen monitor. I would have to map out the closest hospital (which we would end up using).

Reflecting on being an asthma mom

Our family mantra is "things can always be worse," but some days I wished they could be better...

I wonder what my life would be like if I wasn’t an asthma mom? Less stressful? More enjoyable? I have permanent health problems from chronic stress.

All of you other asthma moms – what is your life like? How do you cope?

Share your experience as a parent of someone with asthma, or yourself as a child with asthma by clicking the button below. We'd love to hear your story!