To Breathe or Not to Breathe

Well, I have asthma now.

I do believe it is better for me to admit the cold hard truth now instead of constantly telling myself “I don’t have it, I don’t have it, I don’t have it.”

You see, no one in my family no matter how deeply we go has been diagnosed with asthma that we know of.  My mother and grandma have low lung capacity and breathe hard when hiking mountains, but no inhalers have ever been seen inside of my family.

Until now.  And I have two of them.

Two Puffs 3x Daily

Two Puffs 2x Daily

 It all started with a cough.  At first, it was just late at night.  Back when I was up until the wee hours of the morning, around 1:00 or 2:00 I started having little coughs.  I thought Oh, it’s caused by lack of sleep, better go to bed now … and I would wake up fine.

But the thing is, I kept coughing late at night before bed.  And then I started coughing during the day.  And then I was coughing every other breath when trying to hold a conversation or sing a song.  And don’t even get me started on laughing.

Two weeks into it, when I was hacking up mucus and hearing my chest rattle every time I drew a breath, we had to go to the doctor to check up on … something or other.  I’ve been to the doctor a lot recently.  Anyway, I happened to mention that I had this cough and the conversation went a little like this.

Doc: Do you cough when you sing or talk a lot?
Me:  Yes
Doc: Does mucus come up?
Me:  Yeah
Doc: Is it more of a wet cough?
Me:  Yup.
Doc: You have asthma.

Um … what?  That’s it?  No “well it could be this,” no two week wait before proper diagnoses, not even a breathing test, and you determine I have asthma?  You can image why I didn’t believe her.

Anyway, I took some kind of test and apparently, the results came back showing that I have asthma.  Something about percentages …

So now I take two inhalers three times a day on top of two vitamin supplements, a multivitamin, and my regular crohn’s medicine.  I’ll admit, the cough got better.  It didn’t go away, but it got better.

Then, the doctor recommended I go off of one of the inhalers and only use the other one.

The cough came back right away!  It was horrible and it just makes me feel tired all the time.  It takes a lot of energy to hack up your lungs, you know.  Add that to the stuffed up nose and *ahem* cramps *ahem* and I was just about ready to lay down and die.

And then I had to go to work …

So I am now taking both inhalers and I have accepted the asthma into my little disease family.  I should start naming my ailments …

Edna

Bob

A quote from me earlier today:

“I kind of like the asthma.  It adds to my coolness.”

Hoping you’re feeling better than I am,

Little Me
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P.S. A Note About My Doctor

So, I finally start believing my doctor about the asthma, and then she ruins it all. 

When we went in for another checkup (for the new asthma,) I had a stuffed up nose and very mild cold symptoms.  I wasn’t worried, after all it happens every single month around the exact same time … I’ll let your imagination figure out why.

However, my doctor immediately said (and I quote)

“You have kind of a wet cough.  I think it’s Secondary Bronchitis.  I’m going to prescribe antibiotics –”

First of all, you said the wet cough was asthma, not bronchitis.  Second of all, antibiotics?  So I immediately cut her off and responded,

“Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, it’s just a cold!  It happens [every single month], it’ll go away on its own!  It always does.”

To which she said:

“I don’t prescribe antibiotics like water …”

 Um … yes.  Yes you do.  You prescribed Lyme Disease antibiotics without a second thought.  You prescribed asthma inhalers without a second thought.  A stuffed up nose does not require antibiotics.

Anyway, I refused the antibiotics, as politely as I could in my fear of having more medicine to take, and guess what?  The next day, the stuffy nose immediately was better.  Hmmmm …

You should listen to your doctor, you really should.  Just use your own common sense as well, because sometimes they just take your symptoms and give you a textbook diagnoses, and it’s not always correct.