The 'joys' of asthma...

Sometime in my mid-20s, I discovered I had asthma. It's not life threatening - at least not normally. The doctor described it as: Stress-Induced Asthma. As long as I could keep my body, mentally and physically, under control... I could control the asthma.
So, over the years, I've tried to keep physical, emotional and mental stress at a controllable rate. It's not always worked, I have a bad tendency to push myself past boundaries to get things done. The end result takes form in a Ventolin puffer that I'll end up taking to a month, maybe 3 - until I get my breathing under control again.

As I've become less active over the past couple of years, this buffer seems to be thinner. In the past 3 years, I seem to have needed to be on Ventolin during the fall months, once winter sets in, I seem to be able to manage, and life goes on.
This year was a bit different. About 4 weeks ago, as everyone was catching colds, I got hit with a major sinus head cold. After a week, it set into my lungs, I was worried that - once again - I would be on antibiotics to deal with yet another case of Bronchitis. While, after a little over a week, the cold went away, the coughing didn't. It wasn't a horrible cough, nothing that would indicate bronchitis, but it was annoying - and stared to affect my energy levels. I was finding it increasingly harder to breathe! So, I gave in to my usual stubborn stance of letting my body take care of itself, and went to see the doctor. She confirmed my suspicions, it wasn't an infection, but I was easily dealing with only half of my normal lung capacity. On top of the Ventolin - which, by the way, seems to be doing little to help me this year... annoyingly enough. It's suppose to last 4 hours, I'm lucky it helps for 2... I'm also taking another called Zenhale. It's stronger and requires me to rinse out my mouth after taking it. I only take it twice a day, and it's doing wonders at helping me feel closer to my normal again.

As I work in Customer Service still, only this time for TD Insurance, I can almost guarantee you that I struggle with stress on a regular basis. Being short-staffed lately hasn't helped much either. We've been down to only 5 bilingual reps for a good month now, and the call volumes are often high enough to threaten the loss of my voice. I've already lost 3 sick days to this lack of lung capacity, and sometimes I come close to going home early... but I'm managing. I've never had my asthma hit me this bad before...

People who don't suffer with asthma don't know the trials it can possess. Waking up in the morning to your lungs feeling like they're on fire. Having to stop after or during conversations to deal with coughing. Reduced energy, as your body has to function on less oxygen...

It's even worse when you're not used to dealing with this day-to-day, and are suddenly faced with only being able to do half of what you are used to being able to do. I'm constantly having to remind myself to slow down, calm down, take a bit more time, not to rush things.... activities I normally have energy for are now a taxing experience. Just doing the dishes warrants needing a nap now! It's frustrating... possibly more so to friends and co-workers, manages - who are used to seeing me be able to do more. Some days it feels like I'm walking through a strong current, taking me twice the energy to do just the simplest of tasks.

There does seem to be a ray of sunshine over the hill though.. my breathing has much improved in the week I've been on my puffers. I've even felt normal on occasion - only to hit a brick wall of sorts as I suddenly become short of breath and start a coughing fit. But it is slowly improving. Provided I try not to push myself too far too soon,

I'm going to be optimistic and give myself till the end of the month. I would generally push myself sooner, but I'm learning the hard way that I need to slow down a bit more than usual. I wonder if this is in-part my body punishing me for not getting back into cycling this summer.... When I keep some sort of regular physical activity, impairments - like this asthma - seem to be easier to control... it's a little late to fix my front tire now, but we'll see come spring if that works.