Prashanti Wooten has lived with uncontrolled asthma her whole life.
"We were afraid for her to go anywhere without me because of her asthma," her mom, Debbie Wooten explained. "We have lived in fear all of her life; I don't think you realize what a life she didn't live.
Her inhalers rarely worked. No one knew why.
She never went to her friend's homes because of the possibility of a bad attack.
Kids at school made fun of her, calling her a baby, because she never goes anywhere without a family member.
Everyone was use to it; this has been our lives."
When Lewisburg Instructional Specialist Travis Copenhaver saw a desperate "vent/plea" on social media from Debbie, he wanted to help and thought that his students could learn from the experience. Copenhaver invited Debbie and Prashanti to his New River Community and Technical College paramedic class on February 19, 2017 to see what everyone could learn.
On the day of their visit, Prashanti rushed to get ready and didn't take her inhaler.
The class evaluated her lung sounds, end tidal carbon dioxide capnography and waveform, saturated pulse oxygenation and her baseline vitals. They also talked to her about her home and possible asthma triggers.
"Prashanti had an evaluation as if she were having shortness of breath, because she was" said Copenhaver. "I had her show me how that she used her regular inhaler, but even with a spacer, she had not been educated to make it whistle. Making it whistle gets the most amount of air into the lungs, thus delivering the medication where it needs to be, not in her mouth or in the spacer."
The capnography results showed that Prashanti had an obvious obstruction in her lungs, and after educating her and her mom about the proper use of the inhaler, her capnography improved.
"After talking to them about their home and triggers, we advised Debbie to get a HEPPA filtered vacuum cleaner." said Copenhaver. "While not part of the paramedic curriculum, this type of case study is a major part of the paramedicine curriculum."
Copenhaver is currently teaching the first public paramedicine course in West Virginia.
"This training gives EMS providers a new skill set that mirrors physician extender roles," explained Copenhaver. "Both physicians and patients benefit because they have an extra set of eyes, hands and ears on patient during times when medication compliance and other services are necessary or may have taken longer to get into the home with past services."
Over the weekend of March 11, Prashanti went to the movies with only her friends for the first time in her life.
"Now we feel secure letting her do things on her own. I'm sure the ER thinks that we changed hospitals," jokes Debbie. "Since the visit to the class, we haven't even thought about a visit to the emergency department."
Even her primary care physician is asking what is being done differently.
"We told her about our visit to the class, and she said to keep up the good work," Debbie said. "They assumed that because we'd dealt with her asthma all of her life that we knew things that we didn't know. Now she is getting her medicine. We never knew the spacer could whistle, and the sweeper in itself is a miracle."
"We will never be able to thank you and your class enough for what you have done for us," said Prashanti. "I now have freedom I have never had before."