How to Avoid Going Overboard

We've recently discovered that our daughter probably suffers from asthma.

It began as a chest infection with the usual coughing and spluttering. But the coughing and spluttering did not disappear after a full course of antibiotics and various treatments. Then a chesty wheeze appeared with the almost daily coughing fits (though thankfully not severe).

My husband took her to the doctor, and came home with an armful of equipment: prescriptions for daily preventer tablets, an inhaler, spacer, mouthpiece, face mask, instructions. The face mask and spacer created a wild frenzied panic in Boo, so we tried puffs straight into her mouth. She hated the taste, and soon the daily treatments were a battle. We went back to the spacer with a mouthpiece, showed her Mummy and Daddy happily taking "puffs", and suddenly it was a game. She began coming up to us saying "I have beething. Need my medss." (translation: I have trouble breathing, need my medicine).

Friends at church have been wonderfully generous, and gave us a nebulizer and humidifier they no longer needed. We are very grateful to them, though we hope that we don't have to use them.

We're trying not to go overboard in reaction, but we're looking today for new carpet and a vacuum cleaner with a HEPA filter. The carpet is old, cheap, and tatty, and we were thinking of changing it anyway. But we're not ripping it up in favour of floorboards. For one thing, that stirs up the dust more than carpet can. For another thing, we couldn't afford the heating bill, living where we do!