Just before my son's second birthday, he came down with croup. It's a disease that causes you to have a barking cough, sort of like a seal's bark. And it's miserable to listen to. From then on, he's had an inhaler, because it seemed to trigger asthma in him. Each winter, he would start coughing again. Nothing productive. Just a little cough here and there that wouldn't go away with any medicine. Finally, a few years ago, the doctor prescribed a daily inhaler for him instead of just the "rescue" inhaler we'd had. This was a steroid he could take twice a day, although for over a year now he's only been doing it in the evenings unless he's sick. It's not always fun, but he also wasn't getting his yearly cough. Well, earlier this year, we had to switch the insurance the kids had been on. The one we could afford doesn't cover quite as much as the previous one, but it still covers enough that we're okay. And up until the last month, we hadn't really run into any issues with it.
Then, I went to refill his inhaler again. And the price jumped from $3 to $200. Yikes! Can't afford that. I called the doctor's office, and they helped us try several different things, but nothing was taking the price down. Come to find out, that company was no longer making that medicine and so whatever the pharmacy had left was priced more than ever before. While it was nice to have an answer, I was also worried. After all, he hadn't been off this inhaler for a couple years. What would happen? The doctor offered a nebulizer, but I hated the idea of going to such an extreme when we'd weaned him down to only one puff a day on the other. So, we agreed to try and wait for January, when a new company was going to start offering a drug similar to what he'd been on before. Three weeks. My mama heart was nervous, obviously. What if he had a flare up? What if something happened during the holidays and we couldn't get help because everyone was closed? What if ...? And then I took a breath, offered up another prayer, and breathed for a minute. He's doing fine without the inhaler right now. What I had thought was the beginning of his yearly cough turned out to be a cold and he was almost over it. And we still had his rescue inhaler, just in case. Okay. Time to trust the doctor and God. Because God will always make sure we have just what we need. Even if it feels sometimes like we need more, it's not always true. It's us trying to make sure there's nothing extra that could go wrong. To cover all the bases and try to keep anything bad from happening. That doesn't always work, though. And you know what? My son is fine. He has a little cough right now from some sniffles, but it's January now, and we can get that other prescription called in. We're okay. God saw us through. Do you ever panic when you should be taking a breath and trusting? Have you ever had a loved one who dealt with asthma? How do you remind yourself that God provides for all your needs?
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This is a place for me to share thoughts and ideas not just related to writing. Thoughts about what's going on in my life, about an idea I got that I thought shareworthy, or just a funny anecdote.
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