Here’s an amusing story....since my nasty bout of flu earlier this year I have been suffering from pretty chronic asthma (which has not been the case for most of my adult life)... anyway in the past fortnight or so we have had the blanketing dust storms and more recently large fires in nearby Wooli which have filled our air with smoke and challenged my lungs to do their designed thing, ‘breathe’...of course I have handled it all pretty well and avoided major disasters by a variety of useful and focused breathing techniques but in the wee hours of the morning as temps drop and air pressure changes I often find I need to use the nebuliser ( for those not baptised into asthma this is a machine that pumps asthma medication more directly into the lungs by way of a mask which also humidifies the air a little, the machine, changes asthma medication from a liquid to a mist, so that it can be more easily inhaled into the lungs .)
At this moment I sit here writing...tapping on my computer at 5. am having been awake since 3.00 am. I was having some difficulty breathing, took my puffer/s and spent a good half hour focusing on my breath and slowing my whole body down into a relaxed state...still tight in the chest and not improving I broke into the annoying asthma cough and Tarzan pounded my chest for some self administered physio, this was good... it got me to the bathroom where I could vomit up some of the mucous obstructing my breath...still not really ok however, I gave in to the need for a nebuliser and perhaps the heady possibility of sleep after all! Unfortunately for me we are in the usual pre-summer throws of a seaside cockroach infestation and a bit like my breathing have not gotten on top of this one yet either!!(Oh the embarrassment...) so, the bulb of the nebuliser seemed to have a visitor residing in it so I pulled it apart and went to wash it in hot water... (please imagine a gasping, coughing, wheezing individual stumbling around in the half dark)...then I noticed another grisly reality, the thin tube through which the air passes, was, much like my lungs, blocked by bits of cockroach dirt and other unpleasant looking stuff...I would have laughed but the amount of air I was not getting made this somewhat difficult!! Counselling myself to stay calm I pulled this apart from the body of the nebuliser and took it to the sink as well, thinking hot water passing through may help to clean it...not so...I lunged toward the bathroom, still trying not to panic, found some cotton wool buds and stuffed one into the tube, great it looked like it was working, but when I went to pull it out, it came sure enough, only it left the cotton wool behind, now both my lungs and the tubing were more blocked, I gasped and thought of collapsing, but the desire to overcome overtook and I found a hairclip, stuffed it into the tubing and hooked on the cotton wool...three hairclips later, success...I was wheezing big time now.....back to the bedroom... hook everything up right and on with the mask...sigh....but what was this, water spraying into my face and a crude bubbling noise coming from the nebuliser....too dazed and out of breathe to register, I persevered...but when water started spraying out everywhere I stopped and turned the machine off...the container was full of water to the brim...?????.....oh my gosh, I must have gotten water in the tube and forgotten to drain it...I emptied it out onto the carpet, no time for niceties now...and re- set the container with my medication...mask back on...ah....success....relief.... but while my breathing is somewhat more tranquil, I am very awake!!! Hence I am typing away.....
Now you might ask why I didn’t go machine first...well, sometimes the breathing techniques are successful first up and I like to avoid overmedicating....also ventolin makes your whole body shaky and tight feeling, it’s an adrenalin rush I like to avoid where possible...
You may also asks why I did not get help...to do that I would have needed to wake my very deep sleeping folk at home and talk...not too easy to do when struggling for breath...and no they do not wake up with all my ruminating and gargling noise...they sleep the rare sleep of the peaceful and hard-working and escape my more desperate and ugly moments...and I am glad...I do not look so pretty...
This story is just another of those Mercury retrograde type moments I have been having lately.....like losing an arm on both my glasses within two days...and getting these fixed and low and behold, having the damn things fall off again...Now it is a disaster believe me because I see precious little without them!!
I shall head into my day somewhat cautious of other possible such moments....and glad that no matter what challenge transpires within it, I can overcome!!!!
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