Watch this short video first:
For those who don't know me, I have asthma. I'm not just like any other person who has asthma, my asthma is severe. I don't think people who don't have this illness understands how precious a breath is.
Let me tell you a story, on September 11, 2014 at 4:00 am I woke up to myself wheezing. I went for my inhaler and it was all out of puffs. So I told myself to not worry because I have a nebulizer. For those who don't know what a nebulizer is, it's a machine that connects to your mouth and you pour the nebulizer treatment in which is a liquid and when you turn on that machine it turns the liquid into a vapor. I'm supposed to inhale that vapor so it enters my lungs and opens them up and stops the asthma attack. So anyway, I go to get the nebulizer and start to use it. Within the hour I notice myself getting worse not better. So I figured it was because I needed to do another treatment so I did another one. By 6 am I was at a full blown asthma attack. I was able to breathe slightly but not enough. I start panicking while i still am doing this nebulizer treatment and I start thinking that the medicine was expired and wasn't working. My sister wakes up to get ready for school and sees me sitting on my couch hunched over trying to catch my breath. I hesitantly tell her to call mom. By 6:30 am my mom walks down the stairs and at that point i can't breathe. To the point where I couldn't talk. I had to write everything down on a piece of paper. I was sitting, laying down, walking back and forth, you name it. I was doing it all trying to catch my breath. My mom finally told me to sit down. She asked me if I needed to go to the hospital and I nodded my head yes. She was about to walk away to get her coat when I got the strength and breath to say "Mom, I'm scared." Immediately she dialed 911 and called for an ambulance. I was crying hysterically but that just made my asthma worse. So I collected myself and stopped crying. The ambulance came sooner than expected. Two very tall men came into my house and one stopped to talk to my mom and the other came up to me. He kindly said, " Hey Nelly, so here's the plan. I'm going to disconnect you from the nebulizer and take you outside to the stretcher okay? Do you think you can make it if you walk there?" I shook my head yes but he saw how bad I was trying to breathe. He scooped me up and ran outside to the stretcher and sat me down. Two other men carried the stretcher into the ambulance and closed the doors in front of me. I remember it being super cold in the truck. They hooked me up to an oxygen tank and put an IV in. They started driving super fast and got on the express way. I remember wondering what the people behind us thought about me knowing they could see me through the windows. Half way down the express way i felt extremely tired. I started falling asleep and my eye sight was in and out. One of the men kept waking me up and once we finally got to the Morris Hospital Emergency Room Entrance they pulled me out of the truck and quickly took me into a room in the hospital. Just about 5 nurses started to undress me while hooking me up to certain things. The doctor came in and observed me as i was still struggling to breathe. He left then came back 30 minutes later to find me relaxed and my breathing came back to normal. He told me that I was the worst case he has ever seen in 4 years. He also told me that if I hadn't came in at the time I did, I would've died.
So remember this story the next time you think that everything sucks in your life, cause trust me it doesn't.
Every 30 seconds you take 8 breaths, while you can be taking one.
Morris Hospital? Respiratory issues? My mom works in that field over at that hospital! She may have been there, but being in the emergency unit at the time i'm unsure. it was fascinating to hear about this case on the other side, see things from a new perspective. well take care and stay healthy!
ReplyDeleteMorris Hospital? Respiratory issues? My mom works in that field over at that hospital! She may have been there, but being in the emergency unit at the time i'm unsure. it was fascinating to hear about this case on the other side, see things from a new perspective. well take care and stay healthy!
ReplyDeleteI can relate to you on having asthma. I have a very very insevere case of it, but it still hits me hard at times. Knowing you and being so close to you, I can really feel the pain that you have while sharing this story with us. It's really sad that most people do not understand or even realize how precious every breath you take is. I appreciate you finding it in yourself to share this and let us experience this in our mind what it is like to not be able to take advantage of the very thing we will always take advantage of.
ReplyDeleteSo I'm going to comment in order of what you wrote.
ReplyDeleteWhen I watched the video i started to time myself and see if it actually happened, and of course it didn't because I was thinking about it and I wanted it to be wrong.
When I read your story I started to think about how it would be if I was in your situation. Honestly I would be scared and I'm surprised you pulled yourself together so quickly. I run cross country and I know its not entirely the same but I know that that's how I feel after running a race. The last 400-500 meters I sprint as fast as I can and my coach always says when you think you have no more fight left you still have 30% more fight. So those last 400-500 meters I run as fast as I can and then start to slow down and use that last 30%. When I finish I start crying because I can't breathe and like you said it only makes it worse but I can't help it and I can't pull myself together. This lasts only a few minutes I couldn't imagine it going on for hours.
I can only empathize with your situation. For this reason, I feel like I take advantage of breathing more than anyone with asthma might. Actually, this is the first time I ever stopped and was glad I can breathe with ease. I just never thought of this before because I never had to. I think from this point on I will be more conscious of how lucky I am.
ReplyDeleteIn the sixth grade I came home from school and felt pressure in my sternum, and every time I inhaled it was a pain so excruciating I felt like I wouldn't make it. It could have been anything from pneumonia or bronchitis to something less severe, but either way I felt like breathing was the most difficult feat to overcome and since then have realized it's one act that I must perform everyday that my life truly depends on. Everything else is not as important. And to be honest I woke up today in a very, very bad mood. I had to miss school today and I was not happy about it at all because it has put me behind in my school work and caused even more stress to pile on. The funny thing is that even though I was crying on my way back from school this morning (I was originally going to school but called myself out. The perks of being 18 I guess) I heard this little voice in my head that told me to look into the distance. There, I saw myself ten years, ten months, and ten days from now, not stressing about what I am today. I will have new problems--as I always will--but I need not worry for tomorrow but only for today, and that absolutely involves my respiratory health. Great thoughts!
ReplyDeleteI can't say I complelty understand you with the whole asthma thing because I grew out of mine at a very young age so I don't really remember what it's like but what I can say is I know how precious life is and how scary it is to feel like your gunna die; in 7th grade I started having heart palpitations at first I thought nothing of it and just let them pass and I did this for an entire year until one day in 8th grade I was at lunch and an attack,what we will refer to my heart episodes as, hit me I tried to ignore and just laid my head down on the table my girlfriend at the time being the worrying person she is forced me to go see the nurse. She checked my pulse and it was 228 beats a minute of course her being a school nurse kinda panicked and next thing I knew I was being wheel chaired into the back of an ambulance with no real explanation as to what's going on but by the time I got to the hospital it subsided and the doctors released me chalking it up as a one time thing but as these attacks became more constant and more violent I started to get worried so I went to the doctor where he referred me to a cardiologist, some test and a couple of failed heart monitors later we final caught an attack again with a emergency room trip (this time in sophomore year of high school) I was hooked up to some ekg stuff and the we doctor said that this could kill me if not fixed so I was immideatly checked into the hospital where I stayed for 3 days before I had heart surgery but now I'm better! But i guess the point is, an ambulance trip and three days in a hospital gives you a long time to reflect on what's actually inportant and not take your breaths for granted
ReplyDeleteThough I don't have asthma, I like that moral of your story very much. We all take a task as second nature as breathing for granted. There are millions of people who worry everyday if they will be able to breath due to severe asthma. This story really helps the reader to stop and to take their own condition into perspective.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I'm glad you're still here. Most of the time, I forget about the things I take for granted. I wish everyone could read this because then maybe they'd know what it was like to step out of their shoes and realize how lucky they are. And story-wise, that was really awesome. I couldn't take my eyes away.
ReplyDeleteIt is crazy to think about how quickly your life can be ripped away from you. It's like you worked so hard to create the person that you are and then boom it's all gone just like that. Life is too easily taken for granted by us humans. It is too precious to mess around with.
ReplyDeleteThis story and video really made me think of how much we all take breathing for granted. There are people who struggle every day just to keep breathing while some of us do not realize how much we should appreciate it. Thank you for sharing your story it really was moving and I am so happy you're still with us.
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