These last few weeks have been hell. I’ve had a chronic cough that’s kept me up at night, made my sides ache, my throat bleed and my psyche weep for relief. My doctor said I had asthma, made worse by allergies. She wrote prescriptions for two inhalers and gave me an in-office breathing treatment. By the next day, I was on all fours on the floor, gasping for what I was sure was to be my very last breath ever, as Pea rubbed my back and said, “that’s okay, mommy. If you go to the hospital, I can just get a new mommy.” All the while, my husband paced around his office with his stupid earpiece in his ear while on a conference call. Completely oblivious to my last desperate gasps for air.
I was ‘diagnosed’ with asthma as a kid. And in the decades since then? I’ve hidden those stupid inhalers in the backs of cabinets, never taken a hit off of a single one of them. I’ve denied the asthma mark of shame* vehemently. I’ve even gone so far as to become a certified scuba diver. A big no-no for someone with asthma.
I do not have asthma.
Let me repeat… I do not have asthma.
When are doctors going to listen to me? I may be a little nutty, but I know myself. I know my body.
Fast-forward to last Tuesday and a trip to an allergy / asthma specialist. Hours of scratch tests bookended by breathing tests.
Guess what?
I don’t have asthma.
Let me repeat… I do not have asthma.
So, while it’s not coming up on six weeks and I still have this nagging and dry cough, it is finally dwindling down. Dying a very slow death. I mean really slow. But the good news? I don’t have asthma! The bad news? We don’t know what I have. It’s been recommended that I visit a lung specialist. But I’m not going to do that. Not just yet. I’m over doctors. They don’t listen very well.
And I’m over summer. It’s been a rough one, as it turns out. Both girls are getting over pink eye and ear infections. And little Coco put a big old exclamation point on her illnesses with a nice case of croup. Fun!
Cough*cough…
*…Why the ‘mark of shame’ comment? A foggy memory of that weird chubby kid in 4th grade gym class with the asthma inhaler on the lanyard, roped to the outside of his Jansport backpack and a wicked game of Dodgeball…
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You are your own advocate. Have they done a CAT scan your chest to check out your lungs?
I had to chuckle at that fanny pack comment. My brother forgot to put his on for my wedding, at 10,000 feet, to tote around his own Epipen, meant to save him from his deadly shellfish allergy. And then what happened, you ask? He left my wedding reception lying in the bed of a pick-up truck for a very bumpy ride to the local ‘hospital’ after eating a scallop. Rebel without a cause, indeed…
Sick in the summer is just not cool. (lol, it’s actually kind of hot…sorry…lame joke, I know..) I hope you all get to feeling better soon! I have asthma that is usually triggered by illness…I hate my inhaler and nebulizer, but they’ve definitely come in helpful on a few occasions. I’m glad you don’t have asthma, but I hope that you eventually see the specialist just to make sure you don’t get sick like this again. Enjoy the last bits of summer!
I had asthma as a kid and truth is I still think I have a hint of it BUT I refuse to admit that to anyone. I’m as healthy as a horse dammit! I also refuse to carry my Epipen around in a fanny pack too. I’m a rebel without a cause!