It Ain’t Easy Being Wheezy

Wow! Of all the things in the world, who would have thought that I would suck at breathing?

This covid-19 pandemic has caused an outbreak of mass hysteria and I was getting a bit scared that people were genuinely going mad! My mum told me that there was a little girl who was having an asthma attack and she was denied medical attention at a hospital and sent back home because they thought she had contracted the virus. I literally felt like I was about to poop out my heart.

I was just a little girl when I had my first asthma attack. I can’t even clearly remember exactly at what age it started; I was about 4 maybe. I do remember what triggered it though. I remember being sick and I was at home with my aunt and I went up to her saying that I felt really bad. She decided to give me some Viro-Grip… Turns out I’m allergic to it! What a surprise! Large hives appeared over my entire body while I turned red but as my airways began constricting, I quickly turned into Smurfette. So I was having a severe allergic reaction and an asthma attack both at the same time. I can’t even begin to explain what that felt like. It was a horrible thing to experience. After that first incident there were other times it happened throughout my early childhood.

Having to spend 15-20 minutes daily on my nebulizer became somewhat of a norm to me. I didn’t spend much time outside. Whenever I got sweaty I would immediately need to have a change of clothes because if it would dry on me, we would just have to expect an ugly attack later on during the day or in the night. Experiencing this as a young child was frightening since I didn’t really understand what was happening to me or why that was happening to me. I would get so angry at my parents for not allowing me to play outside in the rain or run around with my cousins for too long.

When I was a wee bit older, I’d say around 8 years old, I experienced one of the most aggressive attacks. My little lungs were exhausted at that point… I was exhausted. For any of you who have read The Twilight Saga, in Breaking Dawn after Bella had the baby and she felt the “blackness” consuming her but she was fighting against it… that’s basically how I felt. I kinda wanted to give into it but at the same time I didn’t want to. It felt easier to just give into the blackness but there was always that little voice in the back of my head telling me not to.

Everytime I think about these events, I’m like wow. I don’t know how we did it but we did. So now when I hear about this virus going around and that people with respiratory problems are among the vulnerable I get a bit angsty. I haven’t had a full blown asthma attack in about 10 years but I do experience some of the symptoms from time to time whenever they are triggered.

I’m not THAT worried about myself due to the fact that I’ve literally been no where in the past 3 weeks. However, there are adults and children right now who are having to go through this and in such perilous times. Imagine the difficulty my family and I had to endure although we had enough doctors and medication at our disposal. Now imagine having to go through such a difficult time and NOT able to get access to a doctor right away or NOT being able to even make it to a pharmacy. It must be nerve racking!

I know it’s a very worrisome time that nobody was expecting or prepared for, but please, let’s not forget our common human decency and compassion. Don’t make it more distressing for people who already have so much to worry about.

If you’re one of those people who are having a hard time due to your condition, don’t get too worked up. It will only make it worse. Focus on the things that you can control instead of the things you can’t. I know it’s easier said than done as I’m having a hard time dealing with not being in control of the bigger picture but I just take one day at a time.

Stay home and be safe.

Gigi
xx