Now Playing: whole house fan - it's a bit noisy, but cheaper than AC !
Current Mood : Lucky and knows it
I swear, I never learn. I just don't ! After wasting Tuesday, getting off my butt and sewing a decent - but not at all what it was supposed to be - Aileen's Petite Fashions ‘vintage' Barbie dress on Wednesday, I'd planned to spend a happy Thursday, writing this and taking pictures.
I am such a bloody idiot...
Thursday, a job Beloved Hubby had scheduled got called on account of rain (although it wasn't raining here, it was pouring where he was - I saw the radar !), so once he was home, we decided to pack up the PIL's remaining stuff still in our garage and his Office, and deliver it. Mostly their fridge and big TV, which, for some reason, has remained here since the big move and big move back. Luckily, they'd already gotten their washer and dryer earlier this week. Unfortunately, it was already darn near East Coast humid, which really triggers my asthma, but I had inhalers and was reasonably in control.
Too bad it didn't last. Between the dust and long-hair cat dander that clung to the PIL stuff like hairy fairy blankets, my breathing needle pegged fast and hard. Long story short, I gasped and wheezed my way into Friday, when it started to get worse. I was getting panicky from all the straight shots of steroids - prescription speed, quite literally - and even bathroom trips made me cough so hard, I saw stars.
Yet during the day, I was a bit wheezy in my speech, but otherwise mostly OK. But once the sun began descending, my nights of hell began. Honestly, I'm amazed I made it through Friday night. I woke up about every ten minutes wheezing and gasping, and completely forgot my other medicines in the panic-shuffle, so it was rapidly goin' south. About all the ER could do for me was shove a nebulizer at me and make appointments for Monday, this I knew from past experience. And we really couldn't deal with another $800. bill - although Beloved was set to bundle me up in a bedsheet if it became necessary.
Asthma's a weird disorder. All most people know about it - unless it's a loved one who suffers - is Primatene Mist ads and cheap movie shorthand. You know, highwater-pants unable-to-deal-with-Life nerd gets stressed, wheezes for three seconds, and sucks on an L-shaped tube, and never again has another symptom, because it was all always in their heads. Once they're successful and beautiful, asthma falls away, without a leaving a trace, a scar, or a memory, just like pimples and virginity. I wish it was that simple. Stress does not equal imaginary bronchial tube malfunction, ya cheap-hack writers !
I was once asked for a simple explanation of what went on during one of my attacks. I likened it to normally breathing through a tube the size of a drinking glass. Then, usually with some bit of warning, but not always, the available air constricted to the size of a drinking straw, and it felt as though it was getting smaller. I could suck in air, but it got pushed right back out by my panicking lungs. The inhalers eased the panic by soothing the inflammation that began the attack, but it could - and often did - happen again. My chest and windpipe would soon be rough and sore from the forced chemical openings, and fluids easily built up - after all, it was an extreme allergic reaction. If I was lucky and could get free of the allergen and weather that may have triggered it, I'd be OK. Until the next attack. If not...I'd be suckin' on a nebulizer in the ER, having my chest x-rayed again. I was rather heartily sick of the whole business. I'd been diagnosed when I was 20 - when did I get to grow out of it, like in the movies ?
So, without many alternatives save the ER, I scrabbled for the purple oval Advair Diskus sample the nurse practitioner had pressed on me during my last ‘need scripts refilled' visit. I didn't want this powder thing, I'd heard enough bad about it from my mother and various others. But desperate people = desperate acts. Or desperate people = first act of ‘Henry V', I forget which. Need to watch Blazing Saddles again. Read the directions twice, and...
It worked. I hit it every 12 hours, and most of my symptoms are under control, all day. I only need the ‘speed' inhalers now for sudden attacks. Which I haven't had a single one since my first pull on the purple thing. I'm not sure if I'll need to continue using the Advair every day, or just on bad symptoms ones, so I get to call the NP. I'd also like to tell her that there's a very good chance she saved my life. I know all that speed wasn't good on my already-stressed heart ! This stuff doesn't even make it flutter.
Just kinda bugs me. Everyone else adores spring. There's so much beauty, so many delicate but strong flowers, so many harbingers of hope. For me, though, it's one big sick after another ! I feel so old when I have to check the pollen forecast before planning anything. And it's been two weeks since I hit yard sales ! (sniffle) Oh, well - someone else had a good chance to find the goodies, and maybe next week will be my turn.
I think I just need to learn to 1)not take tomorrow for granted (something you'd have though I'd learned thoroughly by now !) and 2) realize that, yeah, surviving getting older takes a bit more forethought than it used to. I once said that the gift of asthma is having to slow down once in a while. I think I need to take that thought with me more often. I have an incredible life - and I want to keep it a while longer !
(embarrassed mumble)Should have a photo of the not-really-vintage-Belle dress I made Wednesday. Although I worked on it for three hours, it's not quite done, and was quite the wrestle-fest. I am sooooo close to deleting Aileen's Petite Fashions off my hard drive...At least the finished item fits the former Sailor Moon quite well !
