As a child, growing up in Sydney, Australia, and then Toronto, Canada, I was a chronic asthmatic. I remember my mother holding my toe through an oxygen tent, my dad rushing me to hospital from a camping trip, and our first day in Papua New Guinnea – a terrible asthma attack.
And then it stopped, just like that, for decades! Of course I always had an inhaler on hand just in case but the asthma pretty much left me alone until a few years ago. It was about a year before Anthony went into the nursing home. I was working at the university and up and down every night attending to Ants, and trying very hard to maintain a happy household for little Ming.
The ‘whoosh’ of an asthma attack is terrifying but, when it happened a few years ago, I didn’t recognise it because it had been so long since I’d experienced it. It was only when I saw my own blue face in the mirror of the hospital bathroom that I realised something had to change. So I gave up my job.
Now – today – this week I am having an asthma attack. I found the prednisolone from 2013 and am dosing myself wisely. It is day 4 and I am not scared because by day 5 it will hopefully pass. In the meantime my amazing mother is giving Ants his lunch.
Whenever I am sick like this I feel so much empathy for my friends who suffer chronic, ongoing diseases. I don’t cope well with my own suffering; I am pathetic! But I do care.
I can breathe.
Two days ago my second great-nephew was born to my second nephew and wife. He, the baby, joins his two-year-old sister (my first great-niece); and my first nephew’s partner is expecting their child soon!
jmgoyder 