Revelation

For the last three to four months I have been watching Emily in her swim practices and have noticed that she just wasn't herself in the pool.  She looked like she was struggling during practices and her times during meets were starting to get worse.  Nothing she did seemed to work and she has been very stressed.  I have had this inkling, this feeling, that there was a deep seeded root to her problem and just could not put my finger on it.

Today was the turkey trot race at her school and Jerry has always taken half a day to run it with the kids.  Last year Emily placed second in her class and 25th overall.  This year she had to keep taking breaks and came in 65th overall.  That is still an amazing accomplishment, but not her best.  I had flashes to swimming and that feeling came back.  That mother's instinct!  Jerry looked at me, after she walked away, and basically told me to book a doctor's appointment.  I asked if he thought she had asthma and he said yes.

Bingo!  Asthma!  I have lived with exercise induced asthma all my life, makes sense that she might too.  It all makes sense.  The fact that she was always out of breath. The fact that her times were getting worse.  The fact that she looked so dang slow in practice but swore she was working hard.

Today I decided to try something.  I gave her a puff off of my inhaler.  I doubt it could do any harm to her and it would really tell us if this is the problem.  Well....she had an amazing work out!  I haven't seen her look this good in a long time, and she had a smile on her face as she got out of the pool.  When I asked her how practice went she said it was amazing because she never got tired.  She felt like she could swim faster and felt energized afterwards.  This just convinced me that I am right.

Now to see what the doctor says.  Hopefully he will concur with me!  :)