Seems my skills have improved

[TestifyToLove]

Once upon a time, the only respiratory breath sounds I could differentiate was wheezing. I was very, very worried on the practical exams in nursing school about my ability to differentiate between rhonci and rails and my ability to even pick up more subtle sounds...like diminished breath sounds.

Apparently, mothering M has vastly improved my skills on that front.

Last spring, I accurately assessed a friend's son's 'anaphylactic reactions' to actually be asthma. It was confirmed by a Pulmnologist and PFT a month later and now he's doing amazingly well with his asthma treated and under control.

DH has been hacking and puking for 6 weeks now. I've offered him every natural remedy I can think of, and he's refused them all. Today, I found my stethescope from having moved. And, discovered he has NO air moving through his lower right lobe.

I sent him to Urgent Care where they discovered that he's got 'quite a bit of fluid in his lungs' and yup, pnuemonia.

He's picking up antibiotics now.

Turns out, I CAN now tell the difference between wheezing, rhonchi, rails, deminished lung sounds and ABSENT lung sounds. I can tell when M needs antibiotics because his lungs have deterioriated (haven't been wrong when in my assessments yet), when someone is having an asthma attack, when I'm having an allergic reaction and apparently even when someone has Pneumonia.

Given how BAD I felt I was with lungs assessments once upon a time, its almost amusing to me how competent I've gotten at this one. Saves on panic when its not necessary, but also prevents me from missing when something IS actually wrong too.

Oh yeah, ABSENT lung sounds is very disconcerting. There is supposed to be air in lungs, nothing says oops better than no air where air belongs.

[AngelaVA]

Wow, I'm not even sure I know what those are. It's bound to come in handy, I'm sorry poor little M has had to give you so much practice though. I hope your DH feels better soon!