Waiting, and waiting, and waiting

Poor Luke has had a nasty cough -- one that gets worse at night and prevents him from being able to fall asleep at night. It took him three hours to fall asleep Sunday night, only to be awakened with the persistent cough at 2:30 a.m. It seemed as though he was panting and struggling to breathe, so I took him to the E.R. Fortunately, he showed no signs of pneumonia, and his breathing rate slowed back down into the 20s before they discharged us three hours later. Unfortunately, there's nothing we can do to calm the cough when it strikes. Cough medicine isn't recommended for asthmatic kids; we tried it anyway out of desperation but it did nothing. More frequent neb treatments, which he's now getting every four hours, haven't been full proof, either. He hasn't had a high fever, but the nagging cough is enough to keep him home, so unfortunately he's been stuck w/ me all week as I try to go about our regular business. He was dragged to Bryn's gymnastics class, and when the DVD player didn't work, he resorted to playing with his Matchbox cars on the one-inch ledge of the viewing window.Today, we waited nearly two hours for Ken's car to be serviced. Fortunately, there's a Starbucks right next to the dealer, so once again Luke set up his cars -- the chocolate milk was a "skyscraper."Tomorrow I get some help when our babysitter, also named Luke, watches Luke so I can go to my tennis clinic, go to the grocery store, and pick up more Albuterol for the nebulizer machine. I'm in Luke's room now, and it's 9:50 pm -- the earliest he has fallen asleep in nearly a week. Could we be turning a corner?