Camp Update

Monkey reports that he only had 2 VCD episodes during 3.5 weeks of overnight camp.  The first was the time described below where he got hit in the chest with a ball and got winded.  The second happened during a soccer tournament, during the second game.  This was a bad incident, because he had trouble getting it to reverse.  He started getting dizzy and went to the infirmary.  They had him breathe into a paper bag (he may have been hyperventilating too?) and that helped with the dizziness.  He recovered soon after that.

Since he has chosen not to play fall soccer this year to save time for Tae Kwon Do and clubs he is interested in at school, the we should have a quiet fall, VCD-wise.  (TKD normally does not trigger his attacks.)  The next test of how things are going will be PE class which starts in  January.

VCD In the News

There doesn’t seem to be anything really new here, but here’s a link to a Newswire article about VCD:

Study Sheds Light on Vocal Chord [sic] Dysfunction and Treatment

And here’s a brief story about a football player with VCD

Calvin Christian lineman has rare condition

(It’s not actually all that “rare”, but it is still referred to as such a lot.)

Winded + VCD

Got a letter from the Monkey at camp. A few days ago he got hit in the chest with a soccer ball and got the wind knocked out of him. This also triggered a VCD attack. He didn’t write about how he resolved it or how long it took, but it must have been hard to do the breathing exercises with the wind knocked out of him. However, he was fine by the time he wrote home, and that has been his only VCD attack at camp so far, so that’s good!

Another week of soccer camp

The week before last, Monkey was in full-day soccer camp, and only had one VCD episode all week. He’s at overnight camp now, and so far as I know, has not had any episodes yet. (He will write home and tell me if he has any episodes, but of course it takes some time for me to receive his notes.) He seems to really have the breathing and posture down. So, we’re in a good place at this point. He’s dropped the IMT training for the summer since he felt awkward about doing it at camp. I hope he will do it more regularly during the fall, so that he’ll be well-prepared for PE class in the winter semester, and spring soccer in the spring (duh). My guess is that that is all it will take to get his number of episodes down to zero. If that doesn’t do it, we will probably try the spiriva for soccer season.