Case Study - Asthma

Unlike many people who have asthma mine did not develop until the end of primary school. For the majority of my childhood I had no serious health problems other than the occasional scratch or bruise. 

 

Looking back I struggle to pinpoint an exact date or even year that I began to feel any symptoms. Melodramatically I try to create an immense ordeal to explain my asthma developing. I try to accuse a year long exchange to Canada that my parents, both teachers, took part in when I was nine. In my imagination Canada becomes a frozen tundra, in which I spend each day battling the elements. One evening I am taken ill with pneumonia  and the following morning I find that I am asthmatic. 

 

Although It is true that I did spend a year in Canada, and even that I suffered slightly form mild pneumonia there was no point at which I suddenly became asthmatic.  My asthma developed slowly. Occasionally I found myself coughing unexpectedly or struggling to breathe after a run. For me it was more like a cold I never quite got off my chest. A cold that I forgot for most of the time. 

 

This is probably how I can best explain my asthma. It isn't something that I am constantly aware of, that I struggle with every day. For the majority of the time I feel like I have no illness at all. That is not to say that my asthma isn't serious. I have suffered many serious attacks and late night visits to the hospital. However, between my attacks I often forget that my asthma exists.

 

Since starting work at the Healthy House I have been lucky enough to learn much more about my asthma, its possible triggers, and ways to treat it before reaching for my pump. 

 

I acquired a horrid chesty cough and cold some time in the Christmas holidays. By New Year's morning I started to feel an ominous tickle in the back of my throat which developed into a full blown, disgusting, phlegmy cough in time for my return to work. Each time I coughed it caused a coughing fit which triggered my asthma making it even harder to breathe. I became more and more reliant on my small, blue Ventolin pump, which I kept close by at all times, but the more I used it the less effective it seemed. Sleeping became almost impossible and by the time work started I was a pale, exhausted wreck. 

 

Maxima, one of the founders of the company, suggested that I try using a humidifier to ease my breathing and calm my asthma. I was amazed by how quickly I began to feel more like myself. My airways relaxed and I stopped wheezing. There was still the occasional cough but now I was able to bring up phlegm which made the coughing feel more useful. By the time I set off home I felt notably recovered.

 

My attitude towards small parts of my daily routine has changed after beginning work for the Healthy House. Before working here I used to survive on horrid unsubstantial powder soups for lunch. This meant that by mid afternoon I had lost concentration and was in an irritable mood. Inspired by the homemade soup Maxima had brought to an office lunch I resolved to make my own to bring in for lunch. I can proudly say this is still going strong and that I feel much better for it.