Chapter 3 - LUCY’S ASTHMA
Lucy was diagnosed six months earlier.
Mild asthma.
Mostly exercise- and viral-triggered.
Not the catastrophic version relatives imagined whenever they heard the word.
She used a rescue inhaler as prescribed.
Her doctor expected we might adjust treatment as she grew.
The care plan was simple:
Keep inhaler accessible.
Use spacer.
Adults supervising her should recognize tightening breathing, persistent cough, chest pulling, or difficulty speaking normally.
If rescue medication failed or symptoms became severe, emergency care.
No mystery.
No moral philosophy.
Ophelia rejected it almost immediately.
Not publicly.
She used softer language around me.
“Children are overmedicalized.”
“She’ll learn to fear normal exertion.”
“Staff panic too easily.”
I answered:
“Her pediatrician decides medicine.”
That should have ended it.
It did not.
Then I learned Ophelia had spent months telling staff a different story.
Lucy was “dramatic.”
Gemma “encouraged dependency.”
The inhaler was “becoming a reward.”
I asked the pediatrician whether rescue medication could be psychologically overused.
He answered carefully.
“Any medication can be used incorrectly. That is why we use a written care plan. Your daughter’s recorded episodes have been consistent with actual symptoms.”
Then he looked at me.
“Has somebody been withholding it?”
“Twice that I know.”
He became very still.
May you like
“Then we need to document that.”
That sentence created a medical record Ophelia could no longer contain inside MDS.
