J has been coughing. Again.

While his big brother tends to stay healthy through all weather, and all exposures, J seems prone to catch every bug, and develop every respiratory complication possible.

He caught a cold last week, and now he’s left with a residual cough.

Because of his reactive airways, we are the proud owners of a nebulizer. I almost posted it on Craig’s List this summer, as he hadn’t had an episode of wheezing for months. But, apparently, that was because it was summer. And, now that the weather is turning cooler, he’s back to the wheezing propensity.

Dad got frustrated at the middle of the night coughing spells, so he brought J to the doctor’s office yesterday, and brought home both oral and inhaled steroids to administer. The oral dosing went down ok yesterday. And the inhaled dosing was ok, both last night and this morning, at least as long as a book was read simultaneous with the dosing of the nebulizer. But, this morning, the oral dose was NOT going down the hatch!! We tried multiple strategies – chasing the offensive liquid with chocolate milk, and apple juice, and bananas. Nothing made it palatable.

I had to get to work, so, I left Dad with the unfinished business of trying to get the prednisolone into the child. I was wondering, as I left, is this worth it? Then, part way through the day, I got the following text message from Dad:

“Maybe the inhaled budesonide is adequate” (with a link to a trial comparing oral with inhaled steroids)

I smiled.

I had thought that the inhaled steroids were probably adequate, but I restrained myself from the temptation to say “I thought so!”, and instead, we are now happily in agree,ent that we don’t need to struggle anymore to get prednisolone into the throat of this stubborn child.

Funny, even though J doesn’t share any genes directly with big sister Sh he sure does have the same antipathy to any oral medications!! Ah well.