Oh Immune System Where Are You? And Lungs??? Knock it off.

When I was a kid. I was sick almost constantly. Whenever I got anything it would go live in my lungs for a while. It was my normal for my mom or dad to spend the night or take shifts in my room holding me up so I could breathe. It was normal to cough until I vomited. It was normal to take more meds than an elderly person. This was my normal. Staying in when it was too cold. Swallowing pills as a preschooler-- all my normal.

My lungs still suck and whenever I get sick- it goes to my lungs and lives there, for what seems to be forever. I still cough with enough force that I sometimes throw up. But it is not as bad as it was-- by a lot. Now, after I am sick for a few days and coughing my stomach hurts! As a kid my stomach muscles were so strong- all the coughing in the world would not make me sore.

As previously discussed- I have an eating disorder, I am maintaining my weight (sometimes white knuckling it) but there is the aftermath of the time that I was in the midst of it.  My immune system is one thing that was pretty much destroyed.  And it sucks being sick.  My normal is sick. The good thing is my kids have great immune systems and usually act as Typhoid Mary.  I'd much rather be sick than them.

Because, looking back, I cannot imagine the frustration, helplessness, and desperation when I was sick so much that my parents felt. When my kids are sick, I would literally give my left arm to take it for them.  How many times have parents prayed to which ever G-d they choose to please please please let them take whatever is ailing their kids.

And it took me being a parent for me to see how much my parents must have begged for the same.  Let them take the bad tasting medicine. Let them stay up all night coughing. Let them get stuck again. Anything...just make the kid better.

So, thanks Mom and Dad for staying up with me so many nights.  Taking me to endless doctors. Cleaning up when I threw up. Waiting in boring hospitals for another chest x-ray to be read. For teaching me to swallow pills.  For convincing me to take the bad tasting medicine- even the truly awful stuff.

I can't imagine what you went through- but thank you for doing everything you could.

Don't tell me to calm down

I have anxiety.  At times it can feel crippling.  Having someone tell me to calm down is like pouring gasoline on a fire: it does no good- and actually makes it worse. If  'calming down' was that easy don't you think I'd do it?? Would you tell someone having a heart attack to just stop? No?  (I certainly hope not, at least.) Then don't tell me to calm down.

Its insulting to be told that- as if I had some choice in the matter.  Anxiety is not something that I can schedule.  It just is.

Another thing not to do-- for the love of all that is holy- do not try and surprise or scar me.  I may surprise you by hitting you.

Some witty title about asthma I guess

I had a mini vacation, not the good kind, the really over expensive medical kind- the hospital.

Colds come and go right? For me they go and live in my chest for a while and make all sorts of insanity. For a few days my breathing had been tight, I stepped up my meds, and paid attention, but it kept getting worse. I started steroids and breathing treatments, I just could not get ahead of it. Finally, on Saturday it was clear I was losing the battle and went to the hospital.

They got me in and hooked up to oxygen and a breathing treatment super fast. I looked and sounded like crap.

Sweet relief that is IV steroids, dual breathing treatments, mag, and epinephrine. Oxygen is good. Breathing is good. I was no longer sweating to breathe.

The doctor did not want to send me home much to my disappointment (however this turned out to be very wise). I was sent upstairs. The hospital has a new bed tower. It is nicer than most hotels I have stayed in. Really.

Either this hospital just has amazing nurses, or I have really gotten lucky every time I have been there.

My breathing turned for crap again way too soon and the ICU was mentioned- this one I stood firm on. NO ICU. I got to stay in my room, but my meds were bumped up.

Asthma and pregnancy can be tricky. No mom wants to expose her child to unnecessary medication, but the potential risks to the baby from lack of oxygen are more severe and more real than risks from meds.

I have been asthmatic as long as I can remember. Despite that, sometimes it takes me by surprise and catches me off guard.

This morning my doctor was concerned with my pulse being to fast and given my history of clotting, pregnancy, and other risks, he elected to up my heprin and test me for pulmonary emboli- which thankfully were absent, and I was allowed to go home.