Life...

You know the saying "Your actions affect those around you." I always tend to think of that in terms of family and close friends. It turns out the actions of those around you, even if they're not someone you actually interact with can affect you.

A couple of weeks ago I took Natalie and Andrew to Razzmatazz to find some new furniture to go with the other new furniture that I bought for my office. When I was turning the corner to go from one store to the next, a worker from another store was taking one last, long drag from his cigarette and placing it in the outdoor ash tray thing. (I'm sure that there is a proper name for them!) It just so happened that I walked right into that cloud of smoke and got a lung-full of 2nd hand smoke. I coughed and waved my hand in front of my face to get the rest of the smoke out of my path, but the damage was done. For the next week and a half I had to do multiple breathing treatments and really be careful so my asthma wouldn't turn into something more serious. It didn't help that both Natalie and Drew had coughs, and wanted to snuggle with me.

On Monday, the kids had a day off of school, so Kent's mom Julie came out and we went to eat lunch. After that we took the kids to see The Bridge to Teribithia, and then we came home. I went on my walk, and my lungs were a little tight, but I managed to keep up. 20 minutes or so after I got home, though, my lungs were on fire. I just was dying. I had a hot shower, did a couple of breathing treatments, and went to bed, hoping for the best.

Kent was working from home on Tuesday so I planned to sleep in, hoping that the extra sleep would pay dividends for my asthma problem. It was not to be. I don't remember being especially sick or anything that day, but Kent took one look at me, left the room and came back letting me know that I had a doctor's appointment at 2:00 that afternoon. I saw the same guy I saw the last time, and he started me on antibiotics (which make my mouth taste metallic- yuck!) and advised me on breathing treatments and the cough syrup with codeine. I was a little put off that they didn't have the SVN machine hooked up with the steroids in it, but whatever. I just wanted to get better.

In the meantime, I try to get better. When she was over on Monday, Julie mentioned that she would really like to have all of the kids over to spend the night on Friday, and I really was looking forward to that. I wanted to take advantage of the kids being gone and not having to pay for a sitter, I had to get better. They were so excited to go, and truthfully, I was looking forward to a break. By Friday afternoon I realized that my fun night was just not going to happen. I had been coughing and coughing and just not getting better. I called my regular health care provider and told her that I was not feeling any better, and I had officially started my 4th day of antibiotics. She called in a prescription for the steroids, and told me up do a couple of other things that would help. And although I felt terrible, after we dropped the kids off we went to eat and see a movie. When we got home, I realized what a mistake it had been to go out, and spent one of the longest nights of my life trying to decide whether or not to wake Kent up and have him take me to the ER. I was up until at least 3:30, and just struggling for every breath. Not fun....

I managed to make it to church today. I still am not feeling great. I am just afraid to go back to the doctor and have her say that it's gone from bronchitis to pneumonia. For the first time in days, though, the coughs are starting to slow down in frequency and duration, so I think if I can get a good night's sleep tonight I might actually turn a corner with this thing and start to feel better. It's just an absolutely terrifying thing to feel that you have absolutely no control over your body... that at any moment you might not be able to catch your breath, and if you do happen to be left alone and find yourself in that predicament, you might not be able to get help. And all of this because some guy was out on his smoking break.......