My battle with severe asthma started with a chronic cough almost ten years ago, which, despite several rounds of antibiotics to treat conditions like bronchitis, never cleared up. Instead, it got worse. After months of tests, my doctor made the diagnosis.
I suffered from asthma as a child, but my condition went away in my teenage years. Now, as a middle-aged adult, it came back with a vengeance. I tried the usual treatment—a mix of inhalers and anti-inflammatory medicines—for a few months, but I continued to cough and wheeze. Over time, my bouts of troubled breathing went from occurring every four hours, to every two hours, to every 60 minutes.
Eventually, things got so bad I couldn’t even bend over for fear of an attack. My asthma was so uncontrolled that I spent days at a time in a hospital because my husband and I couldn’t manage it at home. For five years, we lived like this, visiting doctor after doctor in search of solutions.
Everything during those years stopped. I like to compare my asthma to a firecracker—sometimes you light it and it fizzles out; sometimes it explodes. This complete unpredictability meant no vacations, no running around with my grandchildren, no going out dancing with my husband. All I wanted was a chance at a semi-normal life, and at that point, I was willing to try anything.
That’s when I realized that my asthma was different. It was more severe. I talked with my doctor and we developed a treatment plan to help get the symptoms under control. Finally, things began to get better.
With the help of my doctor, that treatment plan is still working for me today. An attack is a constant risk, so I always have my medications by my side. I’m training a puppy to become a full-time service dog. I moved away from my home state of New York to Arizona to avoid the cold air that can be a trigger for a flare-up.
I live with limits, but I refuse to let them define me. Moreover, I live with the hope that one day, those limits may be reduced or even eliminated with the help of new treatments that researchers like my mom are working so hard to discover. By sharing my story, I want to give others in my situation that same sense of optimism and the reminder that we are not alone in this fight.
Living with severe asthma is a full-time job, and it has impacted nearly every area of my life. But I view it as my job to take care of myself so I can be around for my family.
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