It's Not Asthma

Today was Madeline's big exercise test at Rainbow's Baby & Children's Hospital. It is officially confirmed by the doctor calling me at home that she does not have asthma!!!! Yeah!! What she does have though is a vocal cord dysfunction that is a somewhat rare disorder that effects the way the vocal cords open and close during breathing especially when there is deeper breathing such as exercise, singing, etc. Madeline's vocal cords close during exercise instead of opening the way they are suppose to. She still has little air going through when she has one of these attacks and doesn't drop below a 90% lung capacity. Which is excellent. The treatment for this is to retrain her to breathe. Sounds simple enough, however there are only a few doctors that treat this in the US, we are fortunate to have one of those doctors in Cleveland. So when I start complaining about traveling to Cleveland again remind me it could be LA. That means no more pills, no more steroids, no more inhalers....just learning to breathe. It sounds so easy we all do it everyday, but imagine being able to take in deep breaths and enjoy fresh air the way our body is meant to. Imagine your child struggling to do this for 13 years. You travel where they can help her. You jump the insurance hoops to help her. You follow her each and every step of the journey, because you love her. Every mother says they would die for their child (Pooh's post states this as well), but what a mother is willing to go through for her child is a remarkable love that is undeniable. We don't look for praise, we don't look for glory, we do it so our child can be the best God has intended them to be, we do it because we love them more than ourselves.