The major disease that our family has is asthma. My grandfather on my mom’s side has it. Grandma on my father side has it too. My father has 7 other siblings and each of those seven has at least one asthmatic child. I have it too and I can say that it runs through our blood. Rarely in our family has anyone who has tough lungs. We’re prone to coughs, colds and allergies.

So nebulizers and ventolin puffs are a common sight in our homes. I worry that our little boy will have asthma too. Thank goodness that he didn’t seem to inherit that from us although he is prone to cough and colds whenever there are weather changes. We plan to enroll him to swimming classes to toughen up his lungs. Maybe we can start next summer.

The toughest condition that I’ve seen is my grandfather’s. He’s a chain smoker and he just wouldn’t quit even though he has asthma. His condition is really worse that he has to be on oxygen therapy most of the time. This is the reason why he couldn’t go around much when he became really sick. The oxygen tanks are to heavy to be moved around. I read that today, they make use of portable oxygen concentrator to provide oxygen therapy to patients at substantially higher concentrations than the levels of ambient air. These are small in size and can be brought practically everywhere.

I still have my asthma but I rarely get attacks now. I’ve learned what triggers my attacks and avoid it. On the top of the list is stress. I try not to be too emotionally caught up on things and take it easy. I’m glad to say that I did have any asthma attack for this year yet.

How about you? What are the common diseases that run in your family?

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We went to B.boy’s pedia Friday last week. He’s supposed to be scheduled for another round of immunizations but he’s nursing a fever that time so we have to delay it until he has recovered. It has been six months since our last visit and although he gained some weight, he is still below the average weight for boys his age. The ideal weight is around 30lbs but he was 4 lbs short.

I reviewed his baby book and I noticed that his weight gain started to decline at around 23 months. Although he gains weight every check up but it was not substantial. Looking back I think this is because he wasn’t getting enough milk. Before, I leave around 12-18 ozs of expressed breast milk at home for his everyday consumption. But since I took on a new role in the office early this year, I found it hard to express milk at work. My supply started to dwindle until around May, I stopped expressing milk in the office altogether.

Too bad the little boy doesn’t want to drink any other milk. We tried fresh milk, Nido, Lactum, Pediasure and other brands but he just ignores them. We tried mixing it with breast milk but he still would not take it. So we let it be for a while, until he tried Bear Brand’s cereal drink. He drinks that twice a day. It helps that there are a lot of Bear Brand commercials so I encourage him to drink milk the same way as the kids in the TV ads do. I tried it first with his oats. I diluted it with around 4 ozs of Bear Brand milk. He took it without qualms. Over the next few months, he improved by drinking 4 ozs of milk a day.

Just last week, I tried to make him take 4 ozs of milk three times a day. So far we were successful. I hope that coupled with vitamins would make him catch up and reach the ideal weight. We have no problem is letting him eat during meals. Magana naman sha kumain. So I’m thinking that maybe he is really lacking on his milk intake. So let’s see if he catches up in a few months time. 

He still nurses from me when I’m home. I think he is still not ready to be fully weaned. I guess the weaning process is really a gradual one and should be child led. Moms should observe the signs and act accordingly. I just try to introduce things step by step and see if he is willing to do the new things. Who knows he will be fully weaned in around 6 months time.

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