So, I finished Marcus Aurelius. He seemed like a very anxious, bummed-out, harried person, and so there go my aspirations to be Philosopher King of Sumas. His thoughts read so much like the way I grew up in Catholicism that I felt sorry for the guy. Basically 'Suck it up, ignore your feelings, nobody cares about your opinion, it's all in your head, and you're just going to croak and be forgotten anyway.' Not even kidding. This dude is no advertisement for being Emperor of Rome. "Would you like some honey covered slave girls scattered in edible gold, your Majesty?" "Naw, gimme a bowl of cold oatmeal. I'm gonna go sit in the outhouse and eat it. In the rain."
So, to cheer myself up a read a few old, forgotten Grimms Fairy Tales, which were by turns bloody, really bloody, full of random talking animals and bloody. And violent. Me being me, this worked, and so, greatly heartened, I ventured forth outside and did a little mowing with my push mower, for the exercise (That's me thinking.) I...
1. punched myself yanking on the pull starter, then I
2. ran over a dead rat, and then I
3. had an asthma attack.
Not because I ran over the dead rat, which to be honest did not look anything like a dead rat until the lawnmower was just starting in at it, when the tail and feet suddenly appeared out of the sodden mass; by then it was too late and I was wearing tall boots so screw it, rats are biodegradable. No, I had the asthma attack because I've had asthma since 1966 and it was cold and damp and I was exerting myself = asthma attack.
I'm going to put in a word here about asthma. It's not imaginary. It can't be cured. Nobody knows what causes it. You can control it, and learn to live with it. So here's what growing up and living with asthma looks like: You look healthy and hale but can't perform the kinds of prolonged strenuous activity that 3/4 of the rest of humankind can, so you have to refuse, which gets you branded 'lazy' and 'a liar.'
It's why, at my last job, I had to go from doing rooms and collecting big tips, to working in the laundry, which is less physically stressful, and does not include tips. The only tips you get in the laundry of a hotel are the turds that people wrap in towels and send down the chute, lots of baby binkies and for some odd reason, single shoes. Even when I work out in the yard, it's do a little, then rest. Do a little more, then rest. Rinse, repeat. All. Day. Long. I'm not a Maserati - I'm a bulldozer. That kind of thing.
If you know someone who has asthma, don't belabor them with your ignorant opinions and remedies. For example, this one: 'You just need to stretch out your chest muscles!" (?) I heard this one so many times it's just stupid. I train with weights, folks. The only thing you gain is a stretched out chest. You get to keep the asthma.
Don't say "Oh, it's just allergies." No. It is not just allergies, Karen. (And allergies are not a 'just' kind of subject either. They can kill you. Now you can have allergic responses that trigger asthma-like symptoms. Or, like me, you can have asthma AND allergies, and have allergic reactions that trigger asthma-like symptoms, that trigger an asthma attack. Huzzah!) You can't fix that shit with Benadryl and a couple of aspirin.
"Just drink honey and whiskey!" How 'bout not? All you get a drunk kid who is still having an asthma attack. This shit was tried on me for years by literally every old person in my neighborhood, including my tea-totaller grandma, who kept a short dog of whiskey just for me if I happened to have an attack at her house - which is probably why I like a sip of Bushmills to this day. I was smart enough to sputter and put up a fuss, too, which made my folks even more determined to pour it down me. While it wasn't a cure, it was fun.
"Oh, it's all in your head. Quit feeling sorry for yourself. Everyone knows that asthma is just psychological." Do they. Funny. I went through seven solid years of therapy, twice a week, read the books, faced my shit, did the work - with a few shorter sessions in later years - and at no time did my asthma subside. And yes, having asthma was one of a number of therapy issues for me.
Nobody really knows what causes childhood onset asthma. For me, it was something that showed up in the middle of my first grade year after a week spent in the grip of a strange, intense floaty feeling. The buzzy, distant, carefree sensation you get right before you faint, basically, only I never did faint, I just said odd things very slowly and walked around feeling like I was at a foggy remove from everything. Then one night I woke up and I was barely able to breathe, coughing up guck, and the rest is history.
An attack can literally happen at any time. No trigger. No warning. Now yes, strenuous physical activity is a trigger.
Sometimes.
This is what gets you branded a malingerer. Asthma is not 100% predictable.
Intense emotional turmoil can be a trigger.
Sometimes.
This is how you get accused of 'playing it' as a way to manipulate people. I promise you I was not outside mowing my lawn this afternoon trying to manipulate anyone. Or in the middle of a deep sleep, come to that.
Here's what an asthma attack feels like. Imagine you've just run full tilt boogie down to the end of the block. You're winded. Suddenly, someone swaps out your trachea for something the size of a cocktail straw, and you have to try and breathe through that, and remember, you're winded already. Now add mucus! Gallons of it! Your lungs are producing it because they're trying to wash away an irritant that isn't there! Way to go lungs! This creates a horrible downward spiral of forcing yourself to cough to clear your lungs, which inflames them, which causes them to produce more guck, which you have to cough to get rid of, and so on, getting worse and worse, until you end up in the emergency ward, where I have been about twelve times in my life. For asthma anyway.
The emergency treatment for a severe asthma attack used to be adrenaline. It was given in a drip I.V. and you'd go from lying on the gurney like a blobfish to 'fight or flight' the instant it hit. Worked like a charm. And also made it look like you, the kid, had been scared out of your fakery by the needle and the hospital surroundings. There were some very outspoken, bitchy doctors and nurses in those days too. "Oh, we see this sudden recovery stuff aaaalll the time with the asthma kids," they'd sneer disgustedly. Thanks folks. I really needed you to reinforce that notion in my parents' minds. Kudos to you!
In latter years they switched treatments to something else, either using an I.V or delivering it via inhalator, which works on the same principle that a vape does, only it was a much more elaborate contraption back then. You'd have oxygen being fed through a nose tube, while sucking on this big collection of hanging tubes and drip chambers, and exhaling the most amazing huge clouds of cold, rolling fog; it was awesome. The nurses would yell at you for doing that. "Just keep your mouth on the inhalator and breathe through that!" they'd say. I say if you're going to come into a hospital damn near dead then you get to have a little fun.
The last time I was hospitalized for a severe attack, shit hit the fan in the middle of the movie 'Full Metal Jacket', right there in the theater. My husband and daughter half pulled, half carried me out past the line of people waiting to go in, and I can only wonder what they were expecting after that sight.
So there you go. I'm feeling just fine now, thank you, I have a shredded rat carcass in my back yard, and the Bejewelled Biker Beast just made oatmeal cookies and I get them all! Not a bad way to end the day!
