Two little Lungs

Being a mother of an asthmatic child I know how painful it is to see your child continuously coughing and be not able to do anything for his relief. I feel totally helpless when he coughs and none of my effort helps him taking a breath of comfort.

My son is about to be 5 years old now. The initial 3 years of life were too difficult. He had been coughing since day one of his life. At that time I didn't know what was wrong with him. He didn't sleep. As soon as I laid him down on the bed, he woke up crying. He only slept in an upright position placing his head on my shoulders.

It took us 4 months to find out that he was asthmatic and how much difficulty he had breathing. By that time he had got severe asthma attacks. When he started coughing, it continued for 2 to 3 hours continuously. Literally, for this long period continuously. I put him in an upright position. I rubbed his back. I gave him medicinal syrup, water, honey so that something my help him stop coughing, but of no use. Whenever he had cough attacks, even nebulization didn't help relieving. I helplessly kept on putting him in my lap or holding him uprightly against my chest surrounding my arms arround him. Nothing helped his coughing. His lungs kept on fighting their battle.

During those 3 years, we hardly slept in the nights. I can count the number of nights on my fingers we would have slept peacefully.

All of us have coughing experience at some point of our lives. Coughing for only a couple of days leaves so much pain in chest, ribs, belly and back. Whenever I have cough, I think of the pain my little champ had been through. His sickness made him a tantrum child but that's the way his mind reacted to the pain his body had been suffering from.

After 3 years, the frequency and severity of his asthma attacks decreased. Perhaps his body has developed immunity. However, the asthma has not vanished completely. It comes on and off. Sometimes with lesser intensity and at other times with severity. Whenever it comes with severity, it squeezes him so badly. He neither can sleep, nor eats anything.

For the last two weeks, he is having severe attacks of coughing. He has completed the courses of two different anti-biotics during this time. He gets better for a while but then again his sickness takes over. The night before yesterday I felt a considerable betterment in his health. I was happy for this but I don't know what happened the following morning, he got fever again along with breathlessness. And......the two little lungs were again at the battle field.

I pray to God for giving his lungs the strength to be victorious and be powerful enough to not be affected by the allergic agents that put them in so much disomfort.