So all day Friday I was on the phone back and forth with the pharmacy, due to the way The Olders new doctor (not!) wrote their refills. The delivery guy was here three times that day, delivering stuff as it got approved for filling by the insurance. At some point during the day, because thanks to The Beloved, I'd actually gotten a few hours sleep, I started wondering, "What in the heck are we supposed to do with the Albuterol MDI the ER doc prescribed for Jack?" My friend Beth echoed the same thought. I've never seen an MDI that is baby-sized, nor any six month old baby, Ds or not, who can take instructions on how to use one. I assumed the pharmacy would help me figure it out. Not! The pharmacy informed me that neither the MDI nor the Spacer were covered by our health plan. I did find out during this phone call that the mouth end of the Spacer is exactly shaped and sized like the MDI, so that the cap from the MDI can be placed conveniently onto the Spacer. For those of you fortunate enough to not know what an MDI is, it means Metered Dose Inhaler. You've probably seen someone out in your travels exhale deeply and then breath into a plastic device with a metal cylinder attached. That's an MDI.
So, this news forced The Dear Daddy and I to get creative. Certainly we are willing to pay the cash for the MDI and the equipment, but toward what end if Jack can't use it? And you know, since Jack had been wheeze-free since our trip to the ER, he promptly developed wheezes not ten minutes after I hung up with the pharmacy. Now I am no stranger to MDI's. I have one sitting on my desk. Same drug. Slightly lower dose than was prescribed for Jack. Not sure why adults get less and babies more. Probably to compensate for drug loss while it travels through the Spacer. I found out from the pharmacy gal that the health plan we just switched from in May and are going back to in June would have paid for all of that stuff, as well as a nebulizer set up designed for babies.
So, with wheezes in hand, errr...on his lap, The Dear Daddy held Jack upright while we timed his inhalations and I tried to depress the cylinder of my MDI in accordance. Jack was a little surprised by the cool burst of "PUFF" shooting up his nostrils, but it worked! Jack doesn't breath through his mouth, so those teensy little nostrils were just going to have to do! It took about 6 depressions to get the prescribed 2 into Jack.
And you can imagine my surprise when this arrived with the last of the script refills for The Middle Little:
Apparently the insurance decided to cover the MDI but not the Spacer. That will probably arrive Monday. The Coke can is for size ratio. This is supposed to fit into Jack's mouth for him to inhale the medication. The next picture is after The Dear Daddy got creative with the fast flow nipples we are no longer using. The blue MDI is shown with the finished product. I'll be able to better direct the flow of the puff towards his nostrils when he inhales, and it turns out to work quite well held about half an inch from Jack's mouth during the only time he does mouth breath - when he cries.
My Poor Little Duck doesn't feel good at all, but at least now he's breathing a little easier.
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