My journey as the mother of asthmatic started just three months after my son Jack was born when he was diagnosed with asthma. Even though I have asthma myself, my own asthma hadn’t been diagnosed until I was well into my twenties so my own childhood asthma experience was very limited. Trying to hold the inhaler up to Jack’s tiny face, I had no idea what was in store for us. To the usual chaos of raising a young child, we added rounds of appointments with pediatricians, pulmonologists and respiratory therapists as we struggled to get some semblance of control over Jack’s asthma in the early years.

As a military family, we also moved regularly, which meant that not only was developing and maintaining relationships with Jack’s doctors and therapists a challenge, but our environment constantly changed. Every time we moved, we were looking for new triggers in the weather, the climate, our home, the new school, friends’ houses, etc. and then learning how to control those triggers. Despite having asthma, we were determined to make sure Jack had all the opportunities to do things like play soccer, go camping, and joining in all of the activities his friends were participating in.

With all of our moving around, I started journaling our daily life with asthma to record the challenges and triumphs that we had as a family trying to manage Jack’s asthma. LivingWithAsthma.net grew out of a desire to share our experiences and what we’ve learned so far in our journey as a family with asthma. It hasn’t always been easy, but Jack’s now a happy and active eleven-year old wreaking havoc in our household along with his 8 year-old brother Luke, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.

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Blog Posts by Carolyn