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Asthma and Pneumonia

© Leigh G. Kirtley

She kept frowning. "I don't hear anything in his chest. Even though it sounds clear, we better send him for chest x-rays just to be sure."

X-rays confirmed Matt's pneumonia. There was a small spot of fluid in the same spot he had felt the pain. Luckily, it was bacterial pneumonia and he responded quickly to antibiotics and was home the next day. (Viral pneumonia, which killed Jim Henson years ago, does not respond to antibiotics and is, therefore, more dangerous.)

Had it not been for that second doctor, I may have lost Matt. Just three weeks earlier, a girl his age died from pneumonia in our area because her doctor thought it was a mild cough, or a lower respiratory infection. He sent her home with some cough medicine and she died less than 48 hours later.

Lessons Learned

Actually, I learned many lessons that I hope I never forget.

First, no one knows Matt's state of health or normal parameters better than Matt and I do. The only analogy I can make is to that of mothers and their babies. Within days, new mothers learn to interpret the meanings of their babies' different cries. One for hunger. One for pain. One for tiredness. And one that means, "I need you." Few people argue when a mother states that she knows exactly what her baby needs when.

For me, the same holds true for Matt's cough and the sound of his breathing. While other asthmatics, and especially wives of asthmatics, agree that there is just something unique about an asthma cough, I have met many who doctors disagree. (Of course, I know many who nod their head, smile and agree with me.)

Second, I learned that you need to be an educated consumer when it comes to health care. It is unrealistic to think that every doctor knows absolutely everything about every condition in every patient. In my experience, I have found that a good doctor relies on information from his patient to make the best diagnosis possible.

Thirteen years ago, a neurologist at Geisinger Medical Center in Pennsylvania told me, "The day you find a doctor who knows everything, find a new doctor." Words to live by.

Finally, I learned not to be intimidated by doctors. They are people too, working long hours trying to do their best. There are plenty of people out there in plenty of professions who are as competent and well deserving of our respect as any doctor. Why do we put them on pedestals? Besides, a title is no guarantee.