August 29, Bremen.
If it existed surely we'd get ourselves a frequent visitor card at emergency rooms across the country.
Dylan started coughing ugly yesterday after getting a cold the day before. I knew what was coming, the dreaded asthma attack, but the cough took me by surprise and left me worried to death. It got worse as the day went on, and I spent the night watching him breathe. There was a birthday party for Gordo Poema and we didn't go but heard the sounds of the reveling as from a great distance, and I spent the rest of the night agonizing over whether to go through the motions of unhooking the truck and driving to the nearest hospital, some twenty miles away, or wait til morning, but maybe it would be too late, what were the symptoms I was looking for to know when the attack was turning dangerous, was I making the wrong decision?
The night advanced slowly, sleepless but for quick, potent nightmares.
This morning during the drive he coughed so hard he vomited, and even though I know it happens and it's not serious, the sight of him looking so distraught struggling for air in the rear mirror was the deciding stroke. We drove to the hospital, mercifully right here in town, as soon as we arrived on the lot.
I am glad we went: hearing the diagnosis is often as healing as swallowing the medicine (he has asthmatic bronchitis,) and I could finally ask all those questions burning on my tongue about asthma and get some definite answers from a health care professional.
Oh but how these episodes leave me frayed, as if the anxiety bore like a seesaw at the core of my body, leaving me drained and exhausted beyond belief.
