Putting the Squeeze on the Wheeze
- Imagine a program that provides
experts who make "house calls" to identify what triggers
an asthma attack.
- Imagine a program that guarantees
asthma medication whenever a child needs it.
- Imagine a program that actually
shows young asthma sufferers and their families the startling
difference between a normal lung and an asthmatic lung.
Such a program, the CVS/pharmacy Draw A Breath Asthma Education
Program, came to Rhode Island in 1997. Its goal is to ensure
that every child who suffers with asthma lives a normal, happy life—free
of the fear of not being able to breathe.
Celebrity Support
Author Chris, Lisa & Sophia Van Allsburg |
Award-winning children’s author and illustrator Chris Van
Allsburg and his wife Lisa know all about this fear. Their daughter
Sophia was diagnosed with asthma when she was a toddler. Lisa will
never forget the events of one early spring night:
"Sophia was breathing very quickly. When she inhaled, I noticed
that her whole ribcage was exposed; her skin was tight against her
back. I called our doctor, who told us to go to the emergency room.
I walked into the emergency room and said, ‘My daughter’s
going to die.’ She was admitted immediately.
I remember feeling one thing: helplessness. I thought, ‘How
could I end up in the hospital with a child with asthma?’ We
were there three days. She was given heavy doses of steroids to
help her breathe normally, which I should have been giving to her
at home, but I didn’t understand it. I wasn’t confident
enough. She had an oxygen unit attached to her for two nights. I
thought, ‘If I’m here, what about all the other mothers
and fathers in the world? People who are as well-intentioned as
I am, but work all day and don’t have the time to understand
this. And I got really frightened."
The Van Allsburgs take action
Enlisting a group of asthma experts, they created the CVS/pharmacy
Draw A Breath Asthma Education Program. Coordinating director Jill
Jaffe says the first initiative was a series of educational programs
designed by doctors, registered nurses, respiratory therapists,
physical therapists and child psychologists. Located at Hasbro Children’s
Hospital, the programs teach children and their parents how to recognize
the onset of an asthma attack, how to use medications and how to
eliminate asthma triggers from the home.
How education helps
In 1995, 17,000 young Rhode Islanders were diagnosed with pediatric
asthma. Jaffe says families need support and education to help them
cope with an asthma diagnosis. "The length of stay in the hospital
is usually two days. Families are too traumatized initially to absorb
the onslaught of information, and then it’s time to go home."
As a result, the education programs will be available for inpatients
and their families, patients who have come to the emergency room
and been released, and children who are referred by their pediatricians.
Children and their families will be able to attend as many courses
as they wish, and can return for refresher courses or when their
medications are changed.
The Relieve the Squeeze asthma storybook is available
in Borders book stores and online. |
Another goal of the Draw A Breath program is to furnish pediatricians’
offices with "a really funny, funky storybook on how I can
manage my asthma," says Lisa Van Allsburg. The program also
hopes to provide plastic lungs for doctors to show their young patients:
one side has a normal lung, while the other half shows a lung with
asthma. "If a mother could see what a lung looked like with
asthma," Van Allsburg says, "she’d never leave the
house without proper medication."
During the second phase of the program, Draw A Breath hopes to
see legislation passed allowing children who attend informational
courses to receive a certificate to carry their asthma medications
to school—something they are prohibited from doing under the
current zero-tolerance drug policy in schools. "Children should
not have to go to the school nurse to get asthma medication,"
she says.
Jaffe says Draw A Breath is also investigating ways to provide
asthma medication for low-income families. "Medications are
expensive. We hope to keep people well by providing access to medications."
A mother's wish
Van Allsburg says that experience has taught her what parents and
children need in order to live without fear: "It takes confidence.
It takes education. Sophia has never had a cough that wasn’t
an asthma cough. You learn what an asthma cough is. You also learn
that each kid has a different onset of asthma. I now know that if
my daughter catches a cold, I need to start her treatments right
away. Because we know the early warning sign, we have not been back
to the emergency room."
"Until I know that most children are living free lives and
not in the hospital with asthma, I won’t relax," Van Allsburg
says. "I’ll feel our work isn’t done yet."
Find out more about the CVS/pharmacy
Draw A Breath Asthma Education Program.
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