Weather, Asthma, and ADHD

Weather

We have been having some crazy weather again this winter. Not like the snowstorms last winter. These are wild swings in temperature. In the last week we’ve been as cold as -20 Fahrenheit for the high to 40 Fahrenheit. That’s a sixty-degree change in temperature and we just hit above freezing at the high end of things! It makes me wonder what the next month will bring before we get to the end of winter. Stuff like this also makes me wonder what on earth climate change deniers are seeing and experiencing that they deny anything is going on. This is Minnesota, so some of this is what we expect every year. But the last couple years have gotten bizarre, even for Minnesota weather.

Asthma

This weird weather bothers me for another reason, not just because it’s hard to keep up with. My cough variant asthma has gone bananas this year. I know part of it is also the fact that I work in a hospital and am exposed to all sorts of germs all the time, too. The combo of the crazy weather swings and germs are like the perfect anathema to my asthma. Nothing sets off my asthma like the cold does, and the underlying irritation from my hospital setting makes it that much easier. I don’t know that I have ever coughed so much for this long my entire life. Not to mention just the crappy, run down feeling from not being able to breathe well since forever. I can’t wait for spring. Maybe I can breathe again without coughing.

ADHD

We gave in and started the process for my kid’s ADHD issues. I’ve been watching him in school and the ridiculous things he’s struggled with are enough. One day he walked out of school and had honest-to-god forgotten his backpack in school. The kid walks to and from school every day. How on earth do you forget your backpack at that point? And the issues the school keeps reporting regarding his work to me just don’t fit. I believe them, don’t get me wrong. The part that doesn’t fit to me is that he can do most of those things when he’s at home with family pushing him to do the work. But that’s all classic markers of ADHD, and I just can’t get ahead of it with him. And my fear is he’ll end up more and more behind if we don’t do something. So, we’re walking through that process to see what everyone can do to support him. Wish me luck because without it, his homework and school stuff will be the death of me.