Just Breathe
Jan. 19th, 2017 10:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
grammarwomanIt's amazing how absolutely you can take for granted something really simple until it stops being easy...like breathing.
My mom smoked through her pregnancies with both my brother and me (and we still turned out as almost nine pound babies). (The Emperor topped the scale at over ten pounds, after several gestational visits where the ultrasound tech joked that perhaps I should take up smoking to slow down his growth. I didn't find it all that funny.) I can't hold her too much to blame, as smoking in the 60s and 70s was still an acceptable hobby. But I do anyway, because I have a long history of respiratory problems (and other unresolved anger issues with her).
I had really bad allergies/hay fever as a kid, and a susceptibility to colds; I can't tell you how many nights I went to bad wheezing in chords and feeling my chest rattle. I blame most of my cavities on sucking cough drops while I slept to try to tame the coughing and noise. I was hospitalized at 9 months for pneumonia, which I have no recollection of, but I still remember one frantic night when I was 4 or 5; I just couldn't seem to catch my breath between coughs, and my parents wound up calling the paramedics. They gave me some kind of breathing treatment at home and left me nursing some ice chips to calm down my system.
Things got better over the years after I went through a series of allergy shots, but it took a while for me to stop dreading Autumn and its onset of symptoms, and I'll probably never shake my body's irritable response to cats. (I can visit them, and stay overnight if my sleeping quarters are free of them, but I'll never have one as a full-time pet. My brother can't even stand to be around them, as we discovered in our childhood during a brief time fostering a cat.)
Nowadays, my breathing only gets that bad with heavy exercise and colds, and usually only in the post-nasal-drip, hacking cough kind of way. I've gotten grimly used to making it all the way through the winter holidays with relatively good health, only to come down sick after New Year's. This year was no exception; I woke up coughing and gross on January 1st. I had thought I was getting better until this past weekend had me gasping for breath and absolutely miserable, unable to sleep comfortably or even walk around with all the wheezing and internal rattling. I had my husband drive me to the walk-in clinic; the PA listened to some rough patches in my lungs and guessed that my cold had left me vulnerable to an overactive allergic response to something, so she prescribed me an inhaler and prednisone. ($25 for the copay, and $0 for both prescriptions - thanks Obama!) I felt almost giddy with how much easier it was to breathe after that.
I think the allergic bomb came from my son's friend who stayed over Friday night, who evidently splits his time between two households of cats and dogs. No offense to the kid, but I don't think we'll be repeating that visit anytime soon.
The wheezing is gone, thank goodness, but the cold's not done with me yet; I still have crap dripping down and making me cough. I'm almost thankful that there is something to dislodge, and not the sucking void of being unable to get enough air. The breathlessness and the sense of panic at not being able to fill up my lungs viscerally brought back the memories of my childhood in a way I haven't thought about in years. I am so relieved to have gotten better since then, and beyond grateful that modern medicine makes the issue a nuisance rather than a nightmare.
Here's to better health, and better living through chemistry, for everybody!
My mom smoked through her pregnancies with both my brother and me (and we still turned out as almost nine pound babies). (The Emperor topped the scale at over ten pounds, after several gestational visits where the ultrasound tech joked that perhaps I should take up smoking to slow down his growth. I didn't find it all that funny.) I can't hold her too much to blame, as smoking in the 60s and 70s was still an acceptable hobby. But I do anyway, because I have a long history of respiratory problems (and other unresolved anger issues with her).
I had really bad allergies/hay fever as a kid, and a susceptibility to colds; I can't tell you how many nights I went to bad wheezing in chords and feeling my chest rattle. I blame most of my cavities on sucking cough drops while I slept to try to tame the coughing and noise. I was hospitalized at 9 months for pneumonia, which I have no recollection of, but I still remember one frantic night when I was 4 or 5; I just couldn't seem to catch my breath between coughs, and my parents wound up calling the paramedics. They gave me some kind of breathing treatment at home and left me nursing some ice chips to calm down my system.
Things got better over the years after I went through a series of allergy shots, but it took a while for me to stop dreading Autumn and its onset of symptoms, and I'll probably never shake my body's irritable response to cats. (I can visit them, and stay overnight if my sleeping quarters are free of them, but I'll never have one as a full-time pet. My brother can't even stand to be around them, as we discovered in our childhood during a brief time fostering a cat.)
Nowadays, my breathing only gets that bad with heavy exercise and colds, and usually only in the post-nasal-drip, hacking cough kind of way. I've gotten grimly used to making it all the way through the winter holidays with relatively good health, only to come down sick after New Year's. This year was no exception; I woke up coughing and gross on January 1st. I had thought I was getting better until this past weekend had me gasping for breath and absolutely miserable, unable to sleep comfortably or even walk around with all the wheezing and internal rattling. I had my husband drive me to the walk-in clinic; the PA listened to some rough patches in my lungs and guessed that my cold had left me vulnerable to an overactive allergic response to something, so she prescribed me an inhaler and prednisone. ($25 for the copay, and $0 for both prescriptions - thanks Obama!) I felt almost giddy with how much easier it was to breathe after that.
I think the allergic bomb came from my son's friend who stayed over Friday night, who evidently splits his time between two households of cats and dogs. No offense to the kid, but I don't think we'll be repeating that visit anytime soon.
The wheezing is gone, thank goodness, but the cold's not done with me yet; I still have crap dripping down and making me cough. I'm almost thankful that there is something to dislodge, and not the sucking void of being unable to get enough air. The breathlessness and the sense of panic at not being able to fill up my lungs viscerally brought back the memories of my childhood in a way I haven't thought about in years. I am so relieved to have gotten better since then, and beyond grateful that modern medicine makes the issue a nuisance rather than a nightmare.
Here's to better health, and better living through chemistry, for everybody!
(no subject)
Date: 2017-01-19 05:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-01-19 06:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-01-19 06:40 pm (UTC)I'm so glad you're feeling better!
(no subject)
Date: 2017-01-19 06:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-01-19 07:24 pm (UTC)I certainly feel you on the allergies and asthma, and on blaming a mother who smoked (in the 70s, as one did) for the worst of it. Thankfully, I am much less sensitive to dogs and cats now than I was as a child, when I could not attend friends' birthday parties if they had a pet (even if they removed the animal for the duration and cleaned the place from top to bottom).
Good luck, and keep breathing! ;)
(no subject)
Date: 2017-01-19 08:16 pm (UTC)That level of allergy is so harsh - I feel bad for kid!you, having to pre-monitor her environment. I'm glad you're much less sensitive now.
I'm hoping my flare-up was a temporary aberration, because I am looking forward to getting another dog as soon as we get our house and landscape issues in order.
(no subject)
Date: 2017-01-19 11:01 pm (UTC)I hope your trouble was temporary indeed (I swear that some specific animals/breeds/idek often seemed to set me off more than others), so that your family can get that new dog when you're ready!
(no subject)
Date: 2017-01-20 04:06 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-01-19 11:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-01-20 04:08 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-01-21 02:32 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-01-21 05:46 am (UTC)