Yesterday we headed off to the pediatrician to check out Cate’s asthma attacks. And I have to say, we picked our new group of pediatricians based on the recommendations of a couple of neighbors, but the first doctor that we met a few weeks ago left me totally unimpressed. I felt like he didn’t really listen to me, and he was very brusque with Cate and basically scared the pants off her.

However, yesterday we met with a different doctor, and I will absolutely be requesting this particular doctor from now on, because he was awesome. He was so sweet and gentle with Cate, she didn’t even cry when he looked in her ears, which is something that always makes her freak out. I mean, it’ll be difficult for anyone to match the love that I had for our pediatrician back in Washington, because she was fantastic, but this guy just might come close.

Anyway, we’ve upgraded Cate’s asthma treatments to the equivalent of her same medication using a nebulizer rather than an inhaler. Cate is definitely not a fan of the nebulizer, and honestly neither am I – it means we have to keep her distracted with cartoons for about 7 minutes instead of the 10 seconds that it takes to do the inhaler. But on the plus side, it really does seem to be help with her wheezing more than the inhaler did. It’s just hard because she gets bored and fidgety long before the medication is done, but if you’ve ever had a child in respiratory distress, you know that the inconvenience factor is pretty minor. Anything it takes to get her feeling better, I’m all for it.

The doctor also gave us an oral steroid, to help with the swelling in Cate’s airways. I got the prescription home, smelled it, and knew that there was no way that I was going to get Cate to swallow it. It smells vaguely like cherries, but it has a really strong chemical smell too. When it was time to give it to her, I set up with a big tupperware container and a couple of towels, just to be prepared for the inevitable gagging and barfing that I knew was going to ensue. And… she loved it. I guess even though it stinks, it must taste like candy, because she sucked the stuff out of the syringe without a single peep of a complaint.

She’s definitely feeling a lot better today, and has even eaten a little bit of actual solid food (when she’s sick, she goes to liquids-only; I guess it’s too hard to chew when you can’t breathe). So that’s great. And she only woke up once last night, for which I am extremely thankful.

So it looks like our birthday party-packed weekend will go on as planned. I wasn’t worried about her being contagious, because I figure we passed that point a few days ago, but I was thinking that we’d have to cancel if she was still wheezing and miserable. Fortunately, it doesn’t looks like that’ll be the case. Hooray for modern medicine!