{"id":120,"date":"2008-03-26T21:28:43","date_gmt":"2008-03-26T21:28:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christine.kimballlarsen.com\/old\/weblog\/health_kids_and_trusting_my.html"},"modified":"2010-03-04T18:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-03-04T18:00:00","slug":"health-kids-and-trusting-my-instincts-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christine.kimballlarsen.com\/?p=120","title":{"rendered":"Health, kids, and trusting my instincts…"},"content":{"rendered":"
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There’s this thing called intuition. It is defined by Dictionary.com<\/a> as "direct perception of truth, fact, etc., independent of any reasoning process." There are a lot of people who may discount intuition as imagination, but I’m not one of them. I have found in my own life, especially when it comes to my kids and their health, that I rely largely on intuition.<\/p>\n

However, in spite of this knowledge, I do find myself too often swayed by the opinions and comments of others whom I perceive to me more experienced, more knowledgeable, or better informed. There have been several very specific instances when I have felt very strongly one way or another about my children’s health and, upon speaking with others (family members, friends, or doctors) I have convinced myself that I worry too much, which is very much the case, and why it is so hard for me to decide when I should do what I feel instead of what others tell me. So instead I let it go without doing anything about it. But in each instance, I haven’t been able to completely let go of the situation until I become persistent enough to overcome the "blow-off" I received from the medical professionals.<\/p>\n

Most recently, my son has been ill with a bit of a cold. I’ve thought for the better part of a year now that he has asthma as he has a terrible time talking when he gets sick, he coughs like crazy, and it takes him almost twice as long as the other kids to get over a cold. I’ve mentioned this to his previous family doctor (before we moved), to a clinic doctor on the way out of town the day we moved, and to his current pediatrician, as well as to my husband who happens himself to be a sufferer of asthma. Until we started seeing our current pediatrician, I was always shrugged off by doctors. In fact, I thought I must have been dreaming because until very recently, his dad (remember – he has asthma himself) said to me that he "sounded fine" when I thought he was having an asthma attack. And so here was someone with the disease, telling me that I’m hearing things. And experienced doctors, men who treat children on a daily basis, who were basically ignoring me, because in their office he sounded fine.<\/p>\n

Yet I persisted. Not as strongly as I probably should have, but I did persist. And his current pediatrician said to bring him in to the office the next time I thought he was having an attack. And so I’ve been waiting (with mixed emotions, because who really wants their kid to get sick?) for Isaac to get a cold so his breathing could be labored enough for a doctor to recognize his breathing as asthmatic. And this past week, as he started getting a cold, his breathing quickly became labored. He would cough after every few words, and could only manage to get out two words at a time. He would push as hard as he could to get the two words out and then cough and wheeze afterwards. I checked his chest and could see that it was sinking in very deep every time he would attempt to take a breath. The final straw was when, at 9 am he was sitting on the couch, and after coughing he told me "Mommy, I’m really really tired." So off to the phone I went to call the doctor.<\/p>\n

I took him in to their office. Answered a bunch of questions. And, to my satisfaction, my son has been diagnosed with viral-induced asthma. As far as I understand this means that when he gets sick (a cold or something like that) his asthma will kick in. Which also explains why he has such a hard time kicking a cold. So he’s on breathing treatments right now, and it has greatly improved.<\/p>\n

This is not the only experience I have had with this sort of situation, and I know I’m not alone. A friend of mine told me about her daughter who had no symptoms other than what she called "sick eyes" – a look in the eyes that seemed sick, not anything physically wrong with the eyes – and after much convincing she was able to determine that her daughter had a parasite.<\/p>\n

The moral of this story is this: to all you parents out there who have a feeling something is wrong with your kids, but people keep brushing you off or telling you you’re making it up, don’t give in to them until you are personally satisfied that you were actually wrong. Don’t believe for a second that some expert (in my case, medical doctors – experts in medicine, or my husband who I would consider very knowledgeable in asthma) are experts on your children. I am the one who is the expert on my kids. I’m the one they spend almost all their waking hours with. I’m the one who hears how they sound when they’re healthy, and the one who can predict a fever even when their temperature doesn’t register high on the thermometer. I know my kids better than anyone else does, and just because someone has more experience with children, medicine, or a disease doesn’t make them an expert on your children and what is normal for them. So don’t be swayed by the opinions of others. Listen to your instincts, follow your intuition, and stick up for your kids. They often don’t know how to verbalize what they are feeling, and certainly can’t force adults to do what they need. So take action, and make yourself heard!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There’s this thing called intuition. It is defined by Dictionary.com as "direct perception of truth, fact, etc., independent of any reasoning process." There are a lot of people who may discount intuition as imagination, but I’m not one of them. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p27O4s-1W","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christine.kimballlarsen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christine.kimballlarsen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christine.kimballlarsen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christine.kimballlarsen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christine.kimballlarsen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=120"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/christine.kimballlarsen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":205,"href":"https:\/\/christine.kimballlarsen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120\/revisions\/205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christine.kimballlarsen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christine.kimballlarsen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christine.kimballlarsen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}