asthma – Natalie Abbott

Just breathe.

Breathe.

I can feel you breathe, just breathe. Forgive the randomness. I did have a short-lived country music period.

I’ve always just kind of failed at the breathing thing. I’ve literally failed with all my respiratory stuff. And I’ve figuratively failed at just about every yoga class I’ve tried. The whole concentrating on your breath… I just never got it. My mind wanders, I can’t connect my breath to the movements… I just didn’t do it right.

So I was skeptical when my trainer told me breathing was something that would help me get to the next level in my riding. It was one of those things that sounds great in theory, but it practice… not quite.

A few months ago, we started working on it in my rides… expanding my breath over a few strides, breathing in rhythm with the horse’s feet… generally, just being aware of it. Then we moved to actually doing something with that breath, with moving the horse forward in a rhythm.

I am not the most rhythmical of people or riders… but somehow, this made sense. I get how to use my breath in this way… and it works! Now that I’m actually using some sort of rhythm, the horse goes “oh, I can do that!”

Since we had that breakthrough, I’ve gotten some really good walk and trot work, collected and really moving through his hind end. Because I’m actually breathing correctly, I’m giving my horse better direction.

Poor guy is probably thinking, “finally!” And so am I. Now the trick is to translate that Zen from riding to other parts of life… easier said than done.

Aerochamber Bear

So I know we can’t have it both ways. We can’t complain about people with medical conditions being treated like children then gush over cute childlike things…

So I have a confession to make, I guess. I love my Aerochamber Bear.

I mean, seriously! He’s cute, and look at the happy lungs at the end of the sequence!

He makes me happy every time I use my Aerochamber (with Mask, hence Bear – apparently only children need masks?)

I know I should do something and analyze why there are no non-Bear Aerochambers with masks… but I don’t want to. Mister Aerochamber Bear and I go way back, and I don’t want to jeopardize our relationship.

So for now, we will continue our twice-daily conversations about lung health and balls with paw prints, apparently.

The Aerochamber Bears

Since apparently only children need aerochambers with masks, I’ve been greeted with this aerochamber bear family for the last 20+ years.

I could be argumentative about it, about the infantilizing of products that can really help anyone and so on and so forth. But… I rather like these bears.

My particular favorite is the one on the bottom, with his happy wave to match his happy lungs.

I guess slightly childish things aren’t all bad.

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And to make this a totally asthma post, this is living dangerously, chronic illness style (don’t worry, I have another ready to use now!)

Coordinating bottle colors

True story: I opened up my mail-order pharmacy order, and was thoroughly impressed with the color-coordination of my meds. For some reason known only to insurance companies, I used to get Ventolin way back when, then it turned into generic Albuterol, and now it’s back to Ventolin! I have to admit I like the colors (and once again the thingy that shows you how many doses you have left is genius!). Then I opened up my new thyroid hormone (higher dosage, since my levels were still too high)… and it randomly comes in a pretty different blue bottle! I have to admit I like that it’s different. Who knows why, but it’s nice.

Just a little medical artistic randomness.

it’s Asthma Awareness Month!

And I can’t resist the opportunity to share a great infographic. Seriously, Infographics make me happy.

Strangely enough, it took doctors a long time to diagnose me with asthma (well, actually, my pediatric pulmonologist didn’t really know if it is asthma or not but if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck… so the saying goes).

On a day to day basis my issues are happily controlled by a combination of inhalers and a miracle pill that seriously improved my life so much once I started taking it! I went from missing weeks of school to only having a few issues a year. I do have a ridiculous amount of phlegm all. the. time. (so phlegmatic!)

A Love Letter to Singulair

Okay, I know I’m being facetious. I blame the Dayquil I’ve been on for the last 5 days as I get over my first cold of the season. But that’s beside the point.

This post is about my utmost appreciation for whatever pharmaceutical company who developed Singulair when I was in high school. They have saved my lungs, and my sanity.

My middle and high school years were rough health-wise: pneumonia a few times, a nasty collapsed lung and hospital stay, and lots of missed school days due to lung issues. And then Singulair came along, and I’ve had very few truly nasty respiratory issues since.

I still get sick all the time, and am forever analyzing my snot to see if yellow has turned to green (gross, I know, but you gotta do it!), but I am thankful that although I feel icky, it usually doesn’t translate into actual infections from the cold stage.

When you’re a student, even in college and grad school, it’s easier to be sick. It’s a pain making up work and such, but as far as real-world ramifications of being sick… there aren’t that many. But being in the real world of work with a chronic illness means taking care of myself and making sure I have my sick leave available for the really bad times.

So every night I take my (now-generic, finally!) Singulair, I’m eternally grateful.

(yeah, I just wrote a post about how much I love big pharmaceutical companies and their products.)