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Breathing Issues

Emily recently informed me that she'd been having trouble breathing for "a couple of weeks". She said she felt as if she couldn't take deep breaths and couldn't completely fill her lungs. So off to the doctor we went.

They performed numerous tests on her and gave her a pretty thorough check-up including a chest x-ray. The doctor said he couldn't find any evidence of a breathing issue other than the fact that she said she couldn't breathe.

This incensed Emily.

They had her take an albuteral breathing treatment which made her shake like a leaf for about thirty minutes and then gave her an albuteral inhaler to take home with us. She used it for a few days, but it made her shaky and nauseous each time and left her with a headache for hours.

Emily is allergic to dust mites, mildew and mold. I strongly suspected that there was plenty of dust in her room which might be adding to her breathing woes.

She had a babysitting gig a couple of days later and I took the opportunity to dust the heck out of her room while she wasn't here to breathe in any of the dust I was stirrin' up in there. I invited Katie to help. She accepted, because it's always more fun to be in someone's room when they don't know you are in there.

Katie and I tackled the room with a vengeance. We wiped down everything in her room, washed everything made of cloth, and vacuumed everything that didn't move. We found scads of dust on her ceiling fan which was probably being spread all over her as she slept at night. But the biggest culprit was the backpack I found shoved up under her bed which had completely mildewed. This is despite the fact that once a week I tell them to clean out from under their beds. Emily had just told me the previous week, "I don't ever put anything up under my bed, so there is nothing for me to clean out!"

Needless to say, Emily's breathing issues miraculously cleared up in a matter of days.

You would think this would inspire her to dust and vacuum her room each week so that dust does not build up in there. If I had problems breathing, I would be very inspired to clean regularly. But I have a feeling even this will not urge her to action.

I just hope she marries a man who likes to dust.
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  1. Ann YMarch 2, 2012 at 7:58 PM

    she just needs to marry a man who can afford a cleaning service or work in a job that affords her the ability to hire a cleaning service. She might outgrow it I have one child who did once he was out of school. Stress seemed to be the underlying trigger. I on the other hand keep getting worse. Stress is the underlying trigger!

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