Fresh as the Morning Dew

Maggie's respiratory issues require constant vigilance. She coughs almost continuously and with the weather getting colder this will only get worse over the next few months.  Some of that is simply her anatomy, some if it is the trach, and some of it is the allergens present in the environment that irritate her airway. I can't do anything about the first two things, but I am trying to improve the dust level around here. 

Today was an all out assault. The housekeeper was here (cue Hallelujah chorus) and I also made arrangements to have the heating ducts cleaned out. I was hoping to arrange for them to come when Maggie wasn't here, but it didn't work out that way. I was concerned that the work itself would raise all sort of dust but that was not a problem. Not only was everything fine for Maggie's health, but had an absolute ball watching them. She cracked up every time they fired up their giant vacuum and attacked a new air duct. Maggie was laughing so hard that she was making herself cough and having trouble breathing. How's that for irony. 

Years of household dust and dog hair were sucked into that machine. The guy was concerned that we hadn't done this in a while. He's right. We haven't. Ever. I'm not proud of that, especially knowing what a difference it made. The Mother of the Year prize may have slipped through my fingers for neglecting this for so long, but it's done now. In fact if Maggie wasn't coughing so much I probably wouldn't have thought to do it at all. But it smells so clean in here right now, that I won't be so lax in the future.

I feel like I'm a Glade commercial.